


Brick by Brick

by HarmonizingSunsets



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, But also would have loved to see it turn into something more, But bored in quarantine lol, Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Partners to Lovers, This fic is probably a few years too late, follows canon from movies but moves away from it as it goes on, love their friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonizingSunsets/pseuds/HarmonizingSunsets
Summary: Natasha had seen many agents in her time during her missions with the Red Room. But there was something about Clint Barton that was different. Every agent had a wall in front of them, making themselves jaded to do what they had to do. But when she’d first met Barton, the wall in front of him wasn’t built out of brick or stone.It was a glass wall. One that protected Clint, but allowed her to see through it—to see him.It was also breakable, and he’d trusted her not to shatter it into pieces.-This is a fic that goes from Natasha’s recruitment to the events of Endgame. However, these events loosely follow canon to make Clint and Natasha together and to make the characters I want alive, alive. Because what else are fanfics for if not for wish fulfillment? :)
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 9
Kudos: 96





	1. A Promise

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter takes place sometime after Natasha's recruited to SHIELD, but before the events of the first Iron Man. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Natasha watched Clint hitting a punching bag through the window, taking it as her chance to observe him without any other eyes watching. He was toned, his blonde hair gleaming with sweat. Although he was in his early 30's, the glint in his eyes as he punched the bag made him look older. Like a green tree that had sprouted amongst a wildfire. Not as tall as the other trees, but making up for it by the way its roots firmly stuck into the ground. It didn’t allow anyone or anything to move it, despite growing up around despair. 

Natasha had seen many agents in her time during her missions with the Red Room. But there was something about Clint Barton that was different. Every agent had a wall in front of them, making themselves jaded to do what they had to do. But when she’d first met Barton, the wall in front of him wasn’t built out of brick or stone. 

It was a glass wall. One that protected Clint, but allowed her to see through it—to see him. 

It was also breakable, and he’d trusted her not to shatter it into pieces. 

And he’d lowered his bow that night, and offered her a chance at another life. One different from the one given to her once she was taken from her family and raised as another weapon in Russia’s holster.

It had been three months since then, three months of Coulson enlisting her in a training program that she was flying quickly through. Faster than any other recruit they’d ever had. She knew that soon, she’d start getting sent into the field. When that day came, she had a feeling who Fury would assign her to shadow.

They hadn’t talked since she arrived at SHIELD. Mostly because if she didn’t have the words for someone, she wouldn’t say anything at all. She’s ducked out of his way every time she’d seen him and avoided his attempts to talk. 

But if she was going to go in the field with him soon, she needed to make things between them clear. 

As he slowed down his punches, Natasha moved away from the window and towards the door of the sparring room. 

The loud slamming of the door didn’t cause his head to turn. He only backed away from the punching bag, beginning to unwrap the gauze on his hands. 

Natasha squared her shoulders when she made it to his side.

“I looked over your files,” she said, looking straight forward as she spoke.

“So, we’re talking again, that’s good,” he said, letting out a breath with a slight smile. “I mean, you’re admitting that you stole confidential information about me, but I still think this is progress.”

She turns to him, finally meeting his eyes. He stared back at her, pretending to be unaffected by her presence, but the sly tilt of his lips told her otherwise. 

Almost like he was…happy to see her. 

Natasha ignored this, folding her arms across her chest. 

“It said that you never miss a shot.”

He nodded simply, shrugging. “I never do.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

Natasha huffed dubiously, but the seriousness of his expression caught her off guard. She expected him to be humble. After what he’d done for her, she wondered if he was one of those types of guys who lived for being chivalrous and saving every maiden in distress (which Natasha had not been. She could have made it out of that alley if it had been in her best interest). Still, there was no modesty as he confirmed the high caliber of his abilities. He seemed cocky about his skills.

She let her hands drop, eyeing him curiously. “So why did you that night?”

His face fell, seeing that they were finally broaching the subject of the different call he had made—of the night that had changed everything for Natasha. 

He walked to the trash, throwing away the gauze in his hands. Clint looked back towards her, running a hand through his hair, making it stick to his forehead. 

“There’s a difference between missing a shot and not taking it.”

“Why didn’t you take it then?” she asked, with her voice clear of emotion. Like she’d been trained to do when asking questions laced with vulnerability. 

He gave her a pointed look. “You know why, Natasha.” She kept standing stable in front of him, but inside, she felt something shaken at his words. He let out a long sigh before continuing. “I thought you were in a bad place and had done some bad things, but you had the potential to do some good.”

“Killing people is good?” 

“No, but protecting the world and the people in it is.”

He must have sensed her question about how’d she’d been told the same thing at the Red Room. What makes the same promise from SHIELD any different? Because he stepped forward, his face softening. She saw that aged but resilient gleam in his eyes again as she looked into them. 

“If you take away the thought of what organization you’re working for when you’re on a mission and do what you think is right regardless, then you can sleep a little better at night. Not like a baby, but good enough.”

This was something she could believe. It wasn’t a guarantee that she was on the right path, but it was giving her hope that she was because the choice was finally hers to make. 

Clint’s eyes scanned her, as if trying to learn something from her silence. Natasha didn’t like that. Even more so, she didn’t like that she let him for a few seconds longer than she had with anyone before. 

“Thank you,” Natasha said, voice still hard-hitting, but the tone sincere. “Thank you for what you did, for giving me a chance. I’m not sure I ever said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yes, I did.”

A smile tugged at Clint’s lips, and she felt herself mirror it. 

She felt the wall in front of her lose a brick. 

“Thank you for not killing me on the spot, I know you could’ve,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. Then, his face clouded over with curiosity. “Why didn’t you, by the way?”

Natasha didn’t answer, she went to the cupboard, pulling out some gauze and beginning to wrap her hands. She walked over to the punching bag he’d been hitting and began to swing. 

“It said you worked in the circus, that’s how you know how to use a bow, isn’t it?” she said between punches. 

“Ok, you’re deflecting, but I’ll bite.” Clint walked over to her, grabbing the punching back from the other side and holding it in place for her to hit. “I was a performer. I’d shoot apples off people’s heads and shoot arrows around their bodies as they stood in front of a stack of hay. Other performers at the circus would steal money from the audience as I dazzled them with my act.”

Her punches halted, tilting her head at him. “Seriously?”

“What?” he smirked. “You thought you were the only one here with a murky past?”

She almost laughed. Almost. 

She began punching again. “What about your family?”

He held onto the bag a little tighter, his eyebrows creasing together. 

“You didn’t read about that too?”

“No, I figured that if you’re going to be my partner, reading about your skillset was all I needed to know. You could tell me anything else yourself in your own time.” 

He was quiet for a few seconds. When Natasha looked up, she saw that his face had relaxed, and was eyeing her with that scanning look again. She steeled her expression and turned back to the punching back. 

“If ever, that is,” she corrected. 

He gave a toothy grin. “So, you want to be my partner now?”

She rolled her eyes. “I think that’s what Coulson wants after I shadow you on the field for a while.”

“But you wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

She stepped away from the punching back, meeting him on the other side where he was standing. She hovered close, allowing her body to gravitate towards him, so it almost brushed against his chest. 

“You have to promise me one thing, though,” she said lowly, batting her eyelashes for good measure. 

Clint’s jaw went slack, his eyes flickering briefly down to her lips. “What’s that?”

She swept his legs unexpectedly from underneath him, flipping him onto the ground. They tussled until Natasha managed to pin him down, his head locked between her arms. 

“Never pull your punches,” Natasha finished, her smile sly.

Clint let out a choked laugh. He lifted his hand, pushing a strand of her red hair behind her ear as if pulling open a curtain on a window to let the light into the room. 

She didn’t flinch, but the feeling of his palm as it went down to brush against her cheek made her shiver, making her grip loosen ever so slightly. 

He took this as his chance to hit her square in the face. She grimaced, and he flipped her onto her back. 

He loomed over her with a smirk, “That won’t ever be a problem.”

She ended up wiping the smirk off his face as they continued to spar. Even when a few agents came in, gawking them with intrigue, neither of them stopped until they were both completely out of breath. 


	2. Thanks for the Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, our mission wraps up early on Christmas Eve, and you stay in Spain watching It’s a Wonderful Life with subtitles. Why?”  
>    
> He shrugged, turning his face forward with a steeled look. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”  
>    
> Natasha looked down at his hands, seeing them twitch for an invisible arrow.   
>    
> “That can’t be true,” she protested. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place a few years after the last chapter, around the time that the first Iron Man takes place. I incorporated Clint's backstory from the comics loosely, taking bits and pieces from it. I always wished they'd talk about his life in the circus more in the movies. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. In case you haven't seen It's a Wonderful Life, here's the note from the film that helped inspire this chapter:
> 
> Dear George, 
> 
> Remember, no man is a failure who has friends. 
> 
> Thanks for the wings!
> 
> Love, Clarence.

Natasha and Clint were in their separate hotel rooms after they extracted the asset and dropped him off successfully. They’d done this type of mission hundreds of times. Nothing was notably different about today’s assignment.

Well, except for the fact that it was Christmas Eve.  
  
Natasha hadn’t blinked when they were briefed about the mission a few days ago, but she’d seen something flicker in Clint’s face when they’d announced the date of it. While he hadn’t protested, or thrown in any snarky comments, Clint had been noticeably off-put by the day that the mission landed on the calendar.

Well, maybe it wasn’t noticeable to everyone else in the room, but it had been to her. After a few years of working together, and usually not going more than three days without seeing one another, she had begun to pick up on his tells.   
  
His fingers would twitch, mimicking the motion of reaching for an arrow or holding one when something was bugging him. He’d also have a harder pierce in his eyes than usual when he was conflicted about something. It was barely visible unless the light hit his eyes just right.  
  
Natasha didn’t know who he would be spending the holiday with if he wasn’t here, but that feeling in her gut told her being in a hotel room with damp towels and a fan that hissed was not the way he wanted to spend his Christmas Eve.   
  
After Natasha finished getting dressed, she looked at the clock. It was a quarter past nine, so he’d probably still be up. While he was usually the one to turn in early after a mission, she’d seen Clint stop for a coffee in the hotel lobby when they arrived earlier that evening.  
  
Before she could question herself, she walked out of her room and down the hall. When she made it to Clint’s room, she briefly sighed before giving their coded knock. It was to the beat of the song “Knock on Wood.” Natasha had wrinkled her nose when he’d proposed the idea, and Coulson had rolled his eyes when he found out about it. Clint, however, laughed every time they used it, even when one of them was trapped on the other side.  
  
Clint swung open the door within a few seconds. He was out of his uniform, wearing an old pair of sweats, along with his favorite purple t-shirt with a white target in the middle of it. His hair was also ruffled, sticking up every which way on his head. 

She didn't normally call people “adorable,” but right now, he was definitely making her consider her previous disdain for the word. 

“Can I come in?”  
  
“Sure,” he replied, gesturing to her stance in the middle of the doorway. “You’re halfway there anyway.”  
  
She walked inside, closing the door behind her. They went over to the couch, leaving a cushion between the two of them. After a few beats of silence passed, she nodded her head towards the television.   
  
“ _It’s a Wonderful Life_?” she asked, uncertainly.   
  
“It’s a classic,” Clint defended.   
  
She shrugged. “I’ve never seen it.”  
  
“Why? Don’t you like black and white movies? It’s offensive to dogs if you don’t, they only see in black and white.”   
  
Natasha rolled her eyes. “That’s not why.”  
  
“Do you think it’s too sappy?”  
  
“No, I’ve just never gotten the chance to watch it.” When he saw his raised brow, she let the corners of her lips tilted upward. “Believe it or not, I do have a soft spot, Barton.”  
  
“I actually believe that. When we met up in your hotel room in Florence, I spotted the DVD of _A Walk to Remember_ underneath your bed.”  
  
Her shoulders stiffened.  
  
“I will not confirm nor deny that.”  
  
He swung his legs out on the ottoman in front of them. “So, you want to watch this with me?”  
  
“You got popcorn?”  
  
Clint reached to his side, uncovering a bag of microwave popcorn. “What do you think I am, an animal?”  
  
“It’s up for debate,” she drawled, leaning her head back on the couch and turning her attention to the movie on the screen.   
  
After twenty minutes or so passed, she felt Clint’s foot nudge against her leg as he spanned them out on the couch.   
  
“What do you think so far?”   
  
She stuffed another handful of popcorn in her mouth. “That the whole town needs to stop whining to George Bailey and do things for themselves.”  
  
He snorted. “You’re right on the money there.”  
  
“But, I do like it,” she admitted.   
  
He turned to her, a slow smile growing on his face.   
  
“Me too.”  
  
Once George Bailey had returned to Bedford Falls, singing with his family and giving Clarence his wings, Natasha cleared her throat.   
  
“So, our mission wraps up early on Christmas Eve, and you stay in Spain watching _It’s a Wonderful Life_ with subtitles. Why?”  
  
He shrugged, turning his face forward with a steeled look. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”  
  
Natasha looked down at his hands, seeing them twitch for an invisible arrow.   
  
“That can’t be true,” she protested.   
  
“What makes you say that?”  
  
“You’ve told me about your family before,” she pointed out. On an undercover mission in Toronto, he’d mentioned that his family used to go to Canada on vacations. Before she could question him further about family, or why they would choose Canada out of all places to spend their vacation at, they got distracted by needing to chase down their target. “I thought maybe you wanted to be with them on Christmas, and that’s why you were upset with going on this mission today.”  
  
He pursed his lips, casually turning down the television. Silence fell over the room. Once he finally looked back at Natasha, she saw something in his expression that she’d never seen before—a coldness.   
  
“They’re dead.”  
  
Natasha blinked at him.   
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s not something I like to talk about very often,” he sighed lowly and draped his arms across the back of the couch. “But my parents died when I was young in a car accident, leaving only my older brother and me.”  
  
The pieces started to click together in Natasha’s mind.   
  
“Your brother, who you joined the circus with?” she guessed.   
  
“Yeah,” he confirmed, drumming his hands anxiously against the couch. “When I left, my brother stayed with the circus. What we were doing turned out to be more of a calling for him than just a means of survival like it was for me. He died a few months after we parted ways, got involved in stealing some weapons. It didn’t go his way.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Clint.”  
  
“It is what it is,” he smiled sadly. “What about you?”  
  
“What about my family?”  
  
He nodded encouragingly.   
  
“I never knew them.” She fidgeted, moving further away from him on the couch. “I was raised in the Red Room, you know that.”  
  
“Yes, but what I don’t know is why on Christmas Eve, you’re sitting here on my hotel couch instead of spending the holiday free to yourself.”  
  
Natasha winced. She should have known her questioning would backfire. She prided herself for being a wild card to keep others at a distance. But with Clint, she seemed to be consistently thrown off her game.  
  
She was too afraid to ask herself why that was.   
  
“Maybe I wanted to see what it was like spending it with someone.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “And?”  
  
She tossed her head back and forth. “And…it’s not so bad.”  
  
That soft glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there all night returned. It gave her a thrill for some reason that she was the one to put it there.   
  
Natasha broke the moment by giving him a gentle shove with her shoulder.  
  
“So, what other movies are on tonight?”  
  
He grabbed the remote. “Natasha, let me introduce you to the world of Claymation Christmas movies.”  
  
“Oh, no.”  
  
He began flipping through the channels, a smirk plastered on his face.   
  
“Oh, yes.” 

…  
  
Sometime after watching _A Year Without a Santa Clause_ and _Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer_ , which had the surprising twist of an elf wanting to be a dentist, she must have fallen asleep.

She woke up with her head on the armrest of the couch, and her body wrapped in a blanket.   
  
She looked around the room, seeing Clint sitting on the ground. He was manically digging through his suitcase. He must’ve not been up that much longer than her, as he was still in the same clothes and had an imprint of a button from the couch cushion imprinted on his cheek. When Clint noticed that she was awake, he withdrew his hands from the suitcase and held them behind his back.   
  
“Clint, what’s going on?”  
  
He bounced onto his heels, bobbing his head towards the clock on the wall. “Nat, it’s Christmas.”  
  
While the nickname was a simple one, for some reason, it caused heat to gather on her cheeks. Luckily, the darkness of the room protected her blush from being seen.   
  
“Merry Christmas, Barton,” she said, her voice groggy. “Now, can I go back to sleep?”  
  
“Don’t you want to know what Santa brought you?”  
  
“Santa doesn’t exist, and if he does, I’d doubt he’d put an assassin on the nice list.”  
  
He walked over to her side of the couch. He uncovered what was behind his back, revealing a gift bag, “Then what’s this?”  
  
Natasha took the bag from him cautiously. She carefully lifted the tissue paper from the bag. Once she did, she saw a beautiful pair of ballet slippers at the bottom. She stared at them, feeling suddenly very awake.   
  
“You said you never owned a pair, that you could only wear them during your training back in Russia. I saw them in the store the other day, and I got them.” He began scratching the spot behind his ear nervously. “It’s not a big deal. You could return it if you—.”  
  
She cut him off, grabbing his arm. “Clint, they’re great.”  
  
The gesture made Clint freeze, his arm going still underneath her hand. “Oh…good.”  
  
She held it there for a few beats longer, before letting it go and grabbing onto one of the slippers.   
  
She felt a tug of guilt, starting to frown. “I didn’t get you anything.”  
  
“Yeah, you did,” he said instantly. Natasha looked at him quizzically, so he continued. “I know why you came over last night, and it wasn’t just because you wanted to watch a movie. You could’ve managed on your own, but you came over, so...that’s enough of a present for me.”  
  
Natasha smiled a real smile. When he smiled back, she did something unexpected, even to herself.   
  
She leaned up, pressing a quick but affectionate kiss onto his cheek.   
  
When she pulled away, and she saw the surprised but blissful look on his face, she almost felt the urge to fix her aim and go for it again.   
  
Before she could contemplate it further, alarms sounded out louder through the room, coming from both of their phones.   
  
They both broke apart, grabbing them. On the screen, Natasha saw that it was an urgent message from Coulson.   
  
Clint sighed. “Work is never done, is it?”   
  
“We’d be out of a job if it was,” Natasha replied dryly.   
  
A day later, when they were packing to leave, Natasha made sure to pack the slippers in a safe place. 


	3. The Widow in the Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You never know. One of these days, you might fall for a guy while on the job,” Clint said, his fingers drumming on his lap. Natasha watched his jaw start to clench, before turning to her with a somber smile. “It happens.”
> 
> She heard alarms going off in her head, telling her not to respond to this. But as always, words seemed to slip past her lips in ways that they wouldn’t for anyone else. 
> 
> “It does,” she nodded in agreement, feeling her breath begin to quicken. “But not with him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thanks for the comments and kudos. This chapter takes place right before Iron Man 2, where Natasha gets sent undercover as Tony's assistant. 
> 
> While this fic is following the movie characters, I added Clint losing his hearing like he does in the comics. I always thought it would be interesting if they added his disability in the films, to show that you can still be a superhero despite any difficulty. Clint's snark in this fic is also inspired a bit by his snark in the comics. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

She found him hanging out in what he called his “nest.” It was the place he went to when he wanted to escape from everyone else. It was a small balcony in the facility, only a few feet long. He would pace, lay on the floor, or dangle his feet over the railing and aimlessly watch people pass by from above. 

When she walked up the steps to the balcony, he waved her over. He was sitting against the wall, looking like he had just been asleep. 

“Taking a cat nap?”

He rubbed his eyes. “I was before you stomped your boots up here.”

She spared a glimpse at his ears. “Good to know that your hearing aids are still working out alright."

Clint had been sent to stop a threat involving a sonic weapon six months ago. To counter the weapon, Clint used a sonic arrow. It had done the trick, but the blowback of sound caused him to lose 80% of his hearing. 

That day had been terrifying. Natasha had refused to leave the hospital until he was released. For three days, she ate nothing but vending machine chips and lukewarm sandwiches from the hospital cafeteria. 

Clint was determined to get back into the field once he recovered. He spent hours in combat training and learned sign language in his spare time. Luckily after a few months, SHIELD used their connections to get Clint high-tech hearing aids made by Stark Industries. 

Sometimes, he would still use sign language or read lips to communicate when he took his hearing aids out. Natasha’s sign language skills were mediocre before, but now, she was fluent. Some of the agents got annoyed when they would talk around everyone else without saying anything, and Coulson argued to others with a smirk that they’d always been able to do that. 

“So, what brings you up here?” he asked. 

“I just needed to give you something.”

Clint eyed her, noticing that she was holding her hands behind her back. 

“You have something for me?” he asked, his face lighting up with intrigue. “Why?”

Natasha gave him a pointed look. “We’ve known each other for years. I know when your birthday is.”

She held out a long thin box to Clint, and he took it with a huff.

“You didn’t need to get me anything.” 

“Yeah, I did.” Natasha sat next to him on the floor and nudged her shoulder against his. “Come on. I know how bad you want to open it. I can see it in your eyes.”

His reluctance was replaced with a boyish grin. “You’re right. I hope this paper wasn’t expensive, cause I’m going to rip it apart.”

“That’s why I splurged for the dollar store wrapping,” she joked. 

He tore off the paper quickly, pieces of it falling off the balcony. Natasha snickered at this, imagining large confetti-like paper showering down on innocent SHIELD agents who passed by beneath them. 

After Clint discarded all the wrapping, the leather case was revealed. Clint’s mouth fell open once he opened it. Inside was a beautifully crafted arrow. He picked it up in his hands gently, marveling at it. 

Natasha let out a sigh of relief. All the red tape and small talk she had to go through to get that arrow was worth it for the look on Clint’s face. 

“This is great,” he said. “Is it a trick arrow?” 

“Not just any trick arrow, the one of your dreams.”

He beamed in astonishment. “A boomerang arrow?”

“Yep,” she nodded. “It’ll always come back to you.” 

Clint placed his hand on her knee, tapping it a few times as a gesture of thanks. “Thank you, Nat.” 

When he pulled his hand away, she stared down at her knee, feeling as if it had been burned. 

“So, how did you get the arrow anyway? It couldn’t have been easy. I’ve been trying to get one made for so long.”

She let her head rest against the wall behind them. “Let’s just say I sweet-talked Coulson into letting me make a request with some weapon specialists on the third floor.” 

Clint’s face fell. 

“You said that you’d do the undercover thing for Stark, didn’t you?”

She grimaced, looking away from him. “I’m ready for bigger assignments.”

“I know you are, but you didn’t have to agree to that mission for just some arrow.”

“It wasn’t just about that,” she said, letting out a long breath. “Yes, it sounded terrible at first. The idea of wearing pencil skirts and giggling at his goatee didn’t sound too appealing. But Fury thinks that he could be a good asset, and I agree.”

He raised his eyebrow suggestively. “A great _asset_ , huh?”

Natasha scoffed. “Oh, please, I’d never.” 

“You never know. One of these days, you might fall for a guy while on the job,” Clint said, his fingers drumming on his lap. Natasha watched his jaw start to clench, before turning to her with a somber smile. “It happens.”

She heard alarms going off in her head, telling her not to respond to this. But as always, words seemed to slip past her lips in ways that they wouldn’t for anyone else. 

“It does,” she nodded in agreement, feeling her breath begin to quicken. “But not with him.”

A flash of surprise crossed over Clint’s face. Natasha held his stare, feeling herself begin to glow from the inside out. Natasha thought to herself how pathetic this was. Clint was able to have this effect on her so easily, even though she’d been well-trained to ignore feelings like the ones she was having now. 

Clint began to frown. “This means that we won’t see each other for a few months.”

She arched her brow at him. “So? We’ve done that before.”

“Yeah, but we won’t be able to make any contact at all. No late-night calls in two different countries, no speaking through radios in Morse code, or coded texts about pizza deliveries.”

She chuckled, remembering how he misread her message for backup once. He’d arrived at her destination with three boxes of pepperoni pizza instead of three guns. 

Clint’s brows drew together, turning serious. “I’m going to miss you.”

“It’ll go by quick, you’ll see.”

He sighed. “This tends to happen.”

She quirked her head. “What does?”

“Partners getting paired together, and then starting to grow apart once they get sent off on their own.”

“That’s not going to happen to us,” Natasha stated firmly as if her words made the fact set in stone. “Also, Fury’s not done with the two of us working together yet.”

“What makes you say that?”

“An initiative file I found on his desk,” she said, with a ghost of a smile. 

“Always the snoop, aren’t you Romanoff?”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” she smirked. 

“So, I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah, soon,” Natasha said, adding a shrug. “It’ll be like any other mission.” 

Clint didn’t look convinced as she got up and walked away. 


	4. The Arrow Necklace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are you so against this, Nat? You’re the one who always puts aside her emotions and gets the job done.”
> 
> Natasha smiled sourly. “I’m not exactly a role model when it comes to dealing with emotions, am I?”
> 
> His anger faltered at her words. Instead, it was replaced with the emotion she’d seen him struggle with for the past month. 
> 
> Regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I'm glad you're liking it so far, your comments mean a lot. 
> 
> This chapter takes place after the first Avengers, dealing with the repercussions of the Battle of New York. 
> 
> And yes, I'm still not over the fact the Russo's had her wearing an arrow necklace in the Winter Soldier and in Endgame. Bless them. 
> 
> Here's my version of how she got that necklace.

Natasha was pacing in Stark tower. After the Battle of New York, Tony had offered all the Avengers their own rooms in the tower. If they were called out to a mission with the rest of the Avengers, they could stay over if they didn’t want to make it back to their apartments. Or, a different planet, in Thor’s case.

They were currently in Clint’s room. Natasha had stormed in after she got the news from Fury. Clint remained sitting on his bed, passively watching her stew back and forth.

“No.”

“Nat...”

“No,” Natasha said crisply. “You’re not letting them send you out for a year. You’re still recovering.”

“I _am_ recovered,” he corrected.

“Then why do you still randomly grimace, and curl your fingers into a fist? Or stare in a mirror to make sure there’s not a hint of blue in your eyes?”

Clint didn’t flinch at her accusations. He knew they were true. While they had flushed most of Loki’s influence out, there were remnants of him still there. Which is why Natasha didn’t understand why he thought it was time to return to work.

“I’m not sure if you know this, it seems like you don’t,” he crossed his arms, earning him a glare from Natasha as he continued, “but you’re not the boss of me. Fury is, and he gave me this assignment.”

“Well Fury’s made a bad decision, so obviously, he’s not in his right mind to be telling people what to do,” she said icily.

“And you are?”

She stilled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He peered at her through his bloodshot eyes, looking tired from a lack of sleep. “I’m not the only thing that’s changed since Loki came to Earth.”

His words weren’t mean, but they were barbed at her.

Natasha knew what he meant by his accusation. The exhilaration she felt after they defeated Loki had been great, but the feeling died down soon after when the repercussions of everything that happened began to settle down on her shoulders.

The destruction all over New York, the tabloids filled with stories about people who were injured, and the looks other agents gave her as she passed them at SHIELD were hard to see. It reminded her that while they succeeded, they also failed people—she could never do enough to change that. 

While she had tricked Loki, playing up her emotions to get the intel that she’d wanted from him, his words about her never being able to "wipe out that much red" had stung. Not because she let a maniac like him make her feel bad about herself, but because it was something she’d already feared to be true.

Natasha also feared that something else he said about her and Clint had been true too.

So, she’d been a little more on edge, put more distance between her and everyone else like she used to when she first started at SHIELD. Natasha thought that Clint would have been too preoccupied with his therapy and training sessions to notice the change in behavior, but of course, he had.

There was a reason he was called Hawkeye, after all.

She must have been silent too long. Clint got up from the bed, getting closer to her than they’d been in a month.

“What’s been going on with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, a bit too quickly. “Don’t worry about it.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, giving her the same look he did in the infirmary when he’d asked why she was acting like a soldier instead of a spy.

“Nat, you’re worried about me right now. Don’t you think that goes both ways?” he said, his eyes growing soft. “Is it about you wanting to get the red out of your ledger?”

“That’s something I’m always worried about.”

“You shouldn’t be. You joined the Avengers, you helped save New York and so many people in it.”

“I know. I don’t doubt my abilities or the good that I’ve done.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “He reminded me that there are some things you can never come back from.”

As Natasha said it, she knew she was talking about more than just the terror she caused when working as an assassin. She’d been in two battles—one against her past sins, and against her feelings for the man in front of her.

Clint’s gaze drifted to the wall behind her. “I think we’re both ready to come back.”

He walked over to his desk on the other side of the room. He grabbed one of the darts sitting on it and strode back a few paces, so he was distanced from the dartboard on the wall.

The dart seamlessly flew through the air. It hit its direct target, right in the middle of the bullseye on the dartboard.

She placed her hands on her hips. “You could do that in your sleep. That’s not proof that your head is on straight.”

“Going on this mission will help straighten it the rest of the way.”

“Or, it could screw with your head even more.”

“I fought in the Battle of New York just fine,” he said, pulling the dart off the board with a sigh. “Why are you so against this, Nat? You’re the one who always puts aside her emotions and gets the job done.”

Natasha smiled sourly. “I’m not exactly a role model when it comes to dealing with emotions, am I?”

His anger faltered at her words. Instead, it was replaced with the emotion she’d seen him struggle with for the past month. 

Regret.

Regret over what secrets he spilled while brainwashed.

Regret over who he’d killed because of Loki.

Regret over Coulson’s death.

Natasha felt pain about those they’d lost herself, which was another reason she’d been more distant with people. But looking at him now, the pain she’d felt was replaced with something stronger—a resolve.

A resolve to help him put his broken pieces back together. Like he once did for her.

Natasha placed a hand on his cheek. He leaned into her touch, his face resting in her palm with his eyes closed.

“Just give yourself a few more weeks of rest and training.” He made a disgruntled noise, starting to pull away from her. But she chased his cheek until it found its way back to her hand, holding it firmly as she spoke. “I get that you want to escape his manipulation, but the best way to do that is to be in complete control of yourself before you go out on the field again.”

He opened his eyes, locking them into hers. Natasha then noticed how tired he looked. He probably hadn’t slept well for weeks. Looking at him in this condition made her stomach ache. 

“It’s got to happen sometime, Natasha. SHIELD agents don’t usually retire. The Avengers are fairly new, but I’m pretty sure they don’t either.”

His words hit her like a shock. Natasha stepped back, letting her hands fall to her sides.

She realized that Clint was right, he had to go. They were Avengers now. They had a responsibility, even more than they had before as agents. They couldn’t stop fighting, no matter how hard they’d just been knocked down.

That’s why Clint he’d been pushing so hard to go back into the field. He may not have thoroughly shaken off Loki’s influence, but he thought this might help him do just that. He needed to get there, to prove to himself that he was worth the new position he’d been given with the Avengers. 

There was no doubt in her mind that Clint deserved it, but he needed to figure that out for himself like she had when she joined SHIELD. So, Natasha decided not to fight him on this anymore.

She took in a deep breath, slowly nodding at him.

Clint smiled, thanking her silently.

A look of remembrance crossed over his face. “I have something for you,” he said.

He suddenly began to move, going over to the drawer of his bedside table. Natasha watched him pull out a small box.

“What for?” she asked.

"Uh, because it’s National Best Friends Day today?”

She rolled her eyes playfully. "While that's true, I have a feeling that has nothing to do with the reason that you're giving me a present." 

Clint glanced at the box anxiously, toying with it in his hands. “Well, I’ve been thinking for a while now how to do this. How to say it, show it in the right way. I was going to give you this when I got back from the mission in New Mexico and when you got off the Stark case, but then Loki happened. Then after the Battle of New York, we both had a lot going on and I could never find the time. So, it had to be today.”

“Of course,” Natasha said, her lips twitching upwards.

“Yeah, fate was feeling poetic, I guess.” He held the gift out to her. “Here, take it.”

She wasn’t one for jewelry, never gasped as she passed by a window filled glimmering chains or rings with big jewels, but the neckless inside the box made her breath hitch.

Inside was a silver necklace. It wasn’t overly flashy, but what was in the middle of the chain was significant.

It was an arrow.

It’s a simple gift, and by no means should it make her feel anything else other than gratitude. Yet looking at it, she felt so much more than she’d ever felt before. Like the last few years of them knowing each other, becoming best friends, becoming interwoven in ways she couldn’t explain, came crashing down on her.

Clint must have taken her silence as a bad thing, as he began to back away.

“I know it’s a bit cheesy. But I thought that this could remind you of me while we’re separated this time,” Clint said, ruffling his hair nervously. “It’s a short-chain so it won’t get snagged on anything, and you prefer silver over gold. I’ll take it back if you think it’s stupid—.”

She surged forward, stopping him by placing a hand on his arm.

“Clint, I love it.”

“You do?” he blinked.

“Yeah,” Natasha nodded, her face brightening. She faced her back towards him, moving her hair to one side. “Can you put it on me?”

Natasha waited as Clint carefully swung the necklace around her neck, so the arrow sat right above the center of her chest. She felt his hands brush against her skin, clipping the chain together.

She pivoted back around toward him. “Thank you.”

The corners of his mouth raised briefly, before turning back down.

Natasha realized that this wasn’t just a necklace; it came with a confession.

“Look, Nat I—.”

“Let’s save what you’re going to say until you get back, ok?” she interrupted. She pointed at the arrow on the necklace. “This speaks enough for now.”

He didn’t look upset, but his smile looked forced as he gave a curt nod. “Ok, you’re right.”

She closed the distance, pulling him into a hug. Natasha placed her head in the crick of his neck and wrapped her arms around him. 

“Stay safe,” she said.

“I always do.”

Natasha tightened her grip. “I’m serious, promise me.”

“Can you promise me the same?”

They both knew the answer to that.

When she pulled away, they still had their arms snaked around one another’s waists. 

He rested his forehead against hers. “So, we both try our best. Deal?”

Natasha wished they could promise more to one another. But that wasn’t a luxury they could afford.

“Deal,” she agreed.


	5. A Well-Practiced Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Natasha,” he said her name like a warning, his voice low and firm. 
> 
> She’s done the same thing with him before, warned him when they were approaching dangerous territory. This wasn’t Clint’s first time being the one to ground them back in reality, either. 
> 
> The way their bodies gravitated towards each other was like a well-practiced song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place a year after the Avengers and a year before Captain America the Winter Soldier. 
> 
> This chapter's also a bit longer. It shows glimpses of the two weeks they spend together after Clint gets back from his year-long mission discussed in the previous chapter. It's also pretty fluffy, so be prepared lol. 
> 
> If anyone is wondering, yes, the honey pun is a reference to the Clint and Natasha scene in the animated show Avengers Assemble. 
> 
> I hope you like this chapter!

He was finally coming back. 

Natasha had been in D.C. for the past year. She joined SHIELD’s STRIKE team, alongside Steve. But, she was taking the day off because Clint’s year-long assignment was over. He was meeting her here and staying for two weeks before heading back to New York. 

Once his plane landed, Steve sent Natasha off with a sly look and asked her to say hello to Clint on his behalf. She could tell that he assumed they’d want to be alone when they reunited. Natasha was grateful for this. While Clint would always be her best friend, Rogers was becoming a close second. He knew when to let things be, and bugged her into talking when something had to be said. If Steve ever did ask about her and Clint, she wouldn’t know what to say. Any word for what Clint was to her felt insignificant. 

All she knew is that Clint was the person in her life. The person she thought about when a situation turned south and the person she felt her fingers reaching for just as she was waking up out of a dream—the person who the Red Room would try to erase from her mind if she was still there. 

She thanked her luck every day that she’d met him, but she also thought about how easy things would be if she hadn’t. 

Natasha had taken him back to her new apartment once he arrived, showing her the bookshelf she was beginning to fill up. Clint was impressed with all the things cluttering her apartment, telling her he was glad that she was finally making a home for herself. 

She didn’t tell him that the reason for her needing a place to call home was because her home had been gone for a year, lugging his bow and arrow all over Europe. 

They went to a movie afterward, because Clint complained about movie theatre popcorn in Europe being no good. “There’s not enough butter and salt,” he had said. “Why would I want to eat dry popcorn?” 

A group of teenagers spotted them in the theatre. They pulled out their phones and took pictures of them while they were watching a movie. Clint had thrown popcorn onto them during the suspenseful sequence, making them jump up in terror. Natasha almost spat out the soda that she’d been drinking from laughing so hard. 

After the movie, they got takeout from a Chinese restaurant that she thought Clint would love every time she ate there. When someone in line stole someone’s wallet, they’d chased down the perpetrator and gotten into a small altercation when his friends joined him. Every punch and scrape had all been worth it when they gave the woman back her wallet, and the owner of the restaurant gave them their food for free. 

They ended up listening to some old records Steve lent her back at her apartment and ate as they told each other stories about what they’d been doing this last year. 

Sometime into the night, they started dancing to one of the songs. Even though they were a bit ruffed up from the fight with the wallet thief, they managed to keep a beat to the music. 

When a slow song came on, they reached for one another without any hesitance. She curled her arms around his neck, and he did the same with her waist. They swayed back and forth sluggishly as if they had all the time in the world to hold one another like this. 

As she rested her cheek onto his shoulder, she smelt the scent of pine, leather, and something else that was so distinctly Clint. She hadn’t been around that scent in so long. One sniff of it almost made her tear up. 

Not almost—it did. Clint’s flannel felt a bit damp on the spot underneath her cheek. 

Natasha pulled her face away to look at him as the record needle passed the last song and spun endlessly in a circle with no sound. 

His eyes held so much sentiment as she looked into them. It reminded Natasha of when they’d first met—staring at one another in an alley, Clint giving her everything with one glimpse. 

Maybe that’s when she’d started falling for him. Natasha didn’t believe in love at first sight, and she wasn’t a child filled with romantic fantasies. But she did believe in what she felt for Clint. With all the uncertainties that surrounded her life, he was one of the things she could anchor onto.

Natasha’s lips inched forward, drifting near his. 

Clint stiffened. 

“Natasha,” he said her name like a warning, his voice low and firm. 

She’s done the same thing with him before, warned him when they were approaching dangerous territory. This wasn’t Clint’s first time being the one to ground them back in reality, either. 

The way their bodies gravitated towards each other was like a well-practiced song. Natasha’s hands always found their way onto his chest, tugging at his shirt to get him closer. Clint’s hands tended to knit through her hair. The whispers with their lips so close to one another but never touching were the lyrics. The chorus was similar every time. The phrasing of words would be different, but it was a familiar tune all the same. 

Together, they made a song that gets stuck in your head, one that you can’t ever seem to shake out of your mind. 

They usually switched off who would take the mic and sing a similar last verse. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” Clint would say.

“We should get back to training,” Natasha would point out.

“We are too good of friends to do this,” Clint would determine.

“We mean too much to each other,” Natasha would murmur.

Each of these moments rhymed. Natasha knows how this song ends by hearing it so many times. One of them pulls away, then the other does, and the next day they pretend it never happened.

They mean a lot to one another. Natasha knows this, and so does Clint. But maybe that’s why they need to have this. They already have each other’s secrets, backs in a fight, shoulders to put some weight on so they can relive some of the load on their own, and they have a home in one another. Why shouldn’t this be one more thing that they share?

Natasha’s lips ghost across his forehead as she curls her arms her closer around his neck. Then, she brushes them across his temple. She kisses his cheek quickly before moving to the corner of his mouth. She lingers there for a moment, taking in the feeling before she pulls away so she can meet his eyes. She can’t, though, because they’re closed. Clint’s taking in shaky breaths, looking as if he’s trying to memorize the feeling of her lips. 

When Clint finally opens his eyes, as if awaking from a dream, she studies them. They dance across her face. She’s amazed at how his expression is filled with so much contentment and conflict all at once.

“Natasha, we can’t,” Clint said. 

This time, it doesn’t sound as much like a warning. Instead, it sounds more like a plea. Like he’s hoping Natasha has more restraint than him.

“Why?” she asked, startled by how calm her voice is. 

“I’ve never been good at this. Keeping someone that I love around.” He set his mouth in a hard line, looking like he’s fighting a tug-a-war inside his head. “I need you around, Nat.”

Despite the anguish on his face, his words make her smile. 

“I’ve never been good at it either.” She takes one of his hands and intertwines it with her own. “But since when is either of us one to back away from a challenge?”

It only takes a second—one second to meet each other halfway.

His arms snaked around her waist, pulling her against him as their lips crashed together.

Natasha always wondered what kissing Clint would be like. She had imagined it in extremes. That it would be chaotic and uncontained, or slow and gentle, but this felt like a bit of both. It was like bobbing in a wave in the ocean, tossing you around a bit, but allowing you to swim in its current. 

When they finally broke apart, their foreheads resting together, Natasha unraveled her hand from his. She began to lead him backward towards her bedroom. 

She pulled the door to the bedroom open, and Clint stared at it. His lips tilted up for a moment. Then, his eyes took in the way her scar on her forehead was opening and how her leg limped as she stood. He looked down at himself, surveying his twisted wrist and bruised skin with remorse.

“Why did we have to go after that guy who stole the wallet?”

“Because we always do,” she sighed. 

Clint hummed at this and followed her inside. Natasha was ever so aware of his hand at the small of her back as they walked to the bed. 

“Get some rest Nat,” Clint said. 

She laid down. “You need it more than me. I’m the one that has super-powered white blood cells.”

He scoffed, getting under the covers. “Do you always have to throw that in my face?”

“Yes,” Natasha said, nestling into his side. “Don’t pretend like you don’t love every part of me, even the Russian enhanced parts.” 

Her joke seemed to hit him differently than she intended. He smiled softly, brushing his hand against her cheek.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. 

It didn’t take long for them to fall asleep. Natasha hasn’t recalled a better night’s rest than the one she had that night. She wondered if, after everything she’d done, she was incapable of sleeping well. When they’d shared rooms before, she’d also seen him thrash in his sleep. It didn’t come easy to him either. 

But with Clint’s arms around her and her head against his chest, she knew this was another thing they were better at doing together. 

…

You’d think after longing for one another for so long that it would be let down when they finally got together. But it was in no way disappointing. It was so much more than she’d ever thought it would be. 

Natasha didn’t know that you could feel the heat of excitement down to your toes. But every time she saw him walk through the door, her feelings overwhelmed her entire body. 

Being with him seemed to bring something to life in her—awakened something she’d never thought she’d feel. 

His tongue grazed hers, and her hands roamed over him. Natasha held onto him for dear life, afraid that she would somehow lose him if she loosened her grip—as if any moment he could get up and walk away. 

But Clint poured so much feeling into every touch and every kiss. It told her that he wasn’t going anywhere. 

Natasha never thought she’d be making out like a teenager, but here she was, her mouth fervently moving against Clint’s, wanting to learn about every inch of him. 

She tore her lips away, panting for breath. Natasha looked at Clint’s face, seeing his swollen lips and a dazed expression. She smiled and reached over to her phone on the table with an idea brewing in her mind. 

“What are you doing? Please don’t tell me that you’re checking your email right now,” he said. 

She pointed her phone camera up at him. “You look priceless right now. Being kissed senseless is a good look for you.”

Before he could protest, the camera flashed. 

“I better not see that anywhere.” 

“Where am I going to post it? There’s not a Facebook for spies.” 

“If there were, it’d be called…Spybook,” he said, grinning like a madman. 

She groaned. Clint told the most horrendous puns. Once a waiter spilled syrup on her at a breakfast place. She’d drawn out the word “honey” questioningly as she looked at it, and Clint had answered, “yes, dear?” 

She snapped another picture. 

“Just for that bad joke, I might send out a few of these photos. I’m sure some of our friends would love to see these,” she said, waggling her phone in front of his face. 

“You wouldn’t.” 

She put on a poker face. “Try me.” 

He acted like he was reaching for the phone, but instead, grabbed her chin and pulled her back towards him. She was jolted but responded quickly. Clint tried to move his hand towards the phone subtly, but she moved her hand away. 

“Nice try,” Natasha said, after breaking apart from him. She held the phone close to her chest, mischief gleaming in her eyes. “I’m not that easily distracted, Barton.” 

Clint’s eyes glimmered as if she had just challenged him. 

“We’ll see,” he said. 

In the end, they settled for a compromise. Natasha wouldn’t send the photos, but she would keep them on her phone. 

Clint later took a picture of her in her pajamas, hair wet from the shower, when she was reading a book in bed. 

She thought he’d captured that picture for retaliation. But when she’d grabbed Clint’s phone to check the time one day, she saw the picture was set as his lock screen.

…

It was very early in the morning, so they shouldn’t worry too much about being noticed. The only people out this early were joggers who wouldn’t stop for anything, even if they spotted a superhero. Still, they both decided to wear their hats and sunglasses when they left the apartment. 

They’re hands swayed together as they walked past farmer’s market. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to come back to New York?” 

“I can’t, my jobs here.” Natasha sighed, her grip tightening on the bag of food in her other hand. “Rogers and I are a great team, surprisingly.”

He rolled his eyes. “You and Steve have practically worked for the government your entire lives. It’s no surprise that you work well together. It’s like you’re two sides to the same coin.” 

“He won’t let me set him up on a date though, it’s getting on my nerves,” she said, gritting her teeth at the thought of all of his refusals whenever she suggested someone. “Why I can’t find the right person for him?”

“Maybe that’s because he already found the right person, back in his time.” 

“Yeah, but even if he did, it’s too late—by about seventy years.”

“To him, it’s only been a few years,” Clint pointed out. “Feelings for someone that important to you don’t just go away. Believe me, I know.”

Silence fell between them. Natasha was too afraid to question his meaning even though she probably already knew the answer. 

They’d been getting along great so far, not labeling or talking about the development in their relationship directly. Natasha didn’t want to crumble whatever they were building together by shaking the walls. 

Today was the last day before Clint would have to report back to SHIELD, and he’d get his new assignment. The bubble they’d been in for the past week in D.C. was about to pop. 

They stopped at a bench, sitting down side by side. 

“We’ll still see each other, right?” Clint asked. 

Natasha set aside her haul of fruit, squeezing his hand that sat between them. “We can visit back and forth like we’ve always done.”

Clint shifted, and she noticed his shoulders begin to tense. 

“Except it isn’t like it’s always been between us,” he said, gesturing at the both of them. He turned his head away, watching a street performer a few feet away bang on a drum. “Unless you want to go back to how it was before?”

She arched her brow. “Do you?”

He exhaled, shaking his head. “No.”

“Then, I don’t either,” she said. “Whatever this is, let’s just take it slow and keep it between us. Okay?”

He nodded, the light in his eyes returning. “Okay.” 

He gave her one of his smiles that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. It was the kind of smile that made it impossible for her to smile back, despite knowing that she’d be separated from it again soon. 

They sat on the bench, eating some apples until the sun began to beat down on them. 

They walked back down the street, heading forward together, but in an aimless direction.


	6. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m the one that released all the files—Hydra’s and SHIELD’s. I outed everyone’s backgrounds,” she said, her voice falling quiet with every word. She then gestured to him with her head hung low. “Including yours.”  
>    
> His expression went blank, nodding slowly. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place after Captain America the Winter Soldier. 
> 
> Natasha is being called to testify, and Clint isn't too happy about it. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Clint found her at his farmhouse, the place he’d escape to when things got to be too much. Since those two weeks in D.C., he’d taken her there a few times so they could be with one another. It was off the grid. Fury set it up for him, refurbishing an abandoned house in Missouri into the one Natasha was standing in right now. It gave Clint a safe place to crash, and somehow, she was one of the people he’d let into his safe place. 

They still hadn’t defined what they were yet, but she knew they had breached more than partners—having something more than she’d had with anyone, really. But it’d been a few months since they last saw each other, he’d got sent to somewhere in the Middle East, and she’d kept her assignment to stay with Steve in D.C. 

For a while, everything seemed fine. Natasha would catch up with Clint every few days, go out with Maria for drinks on the weekends (they’d sometimes talk Steve into joining, and they’d use up all their change by introducing him to songs he didn’t know on the jukebox), and spend the rest of her free time trying to read all the books on her shelf. 

It had been a few weeks since Natasha and Clint last met up when the Winter Soldier surfaced, when everything changed, bringing her to the farmhouse after the fallout of it all. 

She was making tea in the kitchen when she finally heard the door open. It was locked, but only one other person had the key. She waited for him, coyly dipping the tea bag into Clint’s favorite mug, the one that had a beagle eating a bagel on it. When he made it into the kitchen, he dropped his bags onto the floor with a deadpan expression. 

“So, you checked everywhere else first?” she asked, taking a sip of her drink. 

He sat down on the stool at the kitchen table, practically slumping onto it. “I checked your apartment, your _actual_ apartment, a few places I know you crash at in the Midwest, and I had an agent nearby check the spot in Budapest before coming here.”

“Why did you come here last?”

He gave a sardonic grin. “Maybe I was hoping you were out shopping for pears at the farmer’s market somewhere laying low instead of hiding from everyone.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Natasha said, taking a long sip of her drink. “You know I hate pears.”

He reached for her hands on the counter, holding them firmly.

“Natasha, you need to tell me what’s going on and why the hell you are doing this.” 

She looked down at their hands, letting her fingers fold into his. 

“So, you think I’m a criminal now too?” 

“No, of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “What I’m saying is that I see you being hunted down on the news, arrested, then take part in blowing up that helicarrier. Now, you’re not answering your phone. It makes me think that you’re preparing to do something stupid.” 

She avoided his eyes, staring down at the mug. “Maybe I am, and that’s why I didn’t want to take anyone else down with me.”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Nat, come on.” 

She chewed on her lower lip, feeling the exhaustion from the past few days weighing down on her. 

“You don’t understand what happened,” she said finally. 

He squeezed her hand, leaning forward. “Then tell me, so I will.”

It took drinking the whole pot of tea for Natasha to explain. His focus had been sharp on her the entire time, intently listening as she told him about everything that happened the past few days. 

“I’m going to the hearing tomorrow,” she said when she reached the end of her story. “Steve is still re-cooperating in the hospital, and Sam wasn’t a SHIELD agent who let Hydra slip past him, so it has to be me.”

“No, it doesn’t. Fury and Hill can testify. They have more superiority in SHIELD than we do and—.”

“I’m the one that released all the files—Hydra’s and SHIELD’s. I outed everyone’s backgrounds,” she said, her voice falling quiet with every word. She then gestured to him with her head hung low. “Including yours.”

His expression went blank, nodding slowly. “I know.”

Clint’s act of ambivalence to that fact made this all worse. She stood up, walking towards the chair he was sitting in. 

“So why are you here? You should be angry at me and thrust me into there to answer for what I did.”

He stood up, placing a gentle hand on her hip. Natasha hated how it immediately made her anger simmer, his calloused hands skimming the skin underneath her shirt, drawing circles onto her skin.

“Nat—we can’t undo the things that we wish we’d never done. But we can try to be better. That’s what you did for everyone. You gave us all a chance to start fresh.” 

“So, you agree that I need to do this?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he said thinly. “You don’t have to take all the responsibility. Fury should, all of SHIELD should, it’s every agent’s fault that we didn’t catch Hydra before.”

“But I’m the one that did it, and I have more to answer for in that room than anybody else. It’s the reason why Fury didn’t trust me with the truth and told Hill and Steve about SHIELD being compromised.”

He grounded his jaw, her words sparking something in him. “He should’ve trusted you from the beginning.”

“It makes perfect sense. Fury knew I’d done things for multiple parties before. It was right to question if I still was,” she rationalized. “I need to do this on my own.” 

Clint’s face hardened. “You think that you don’t belong in SHIELD, but you do more than anyone else. The way you logically explain things to push people away proves that.”

The words stung. Natasha couldn’t help but hear the double meaning in them. 

She gripped the arm of the chair he’d been sitting in, trying to pass off passive amusement, but her smile fell flat. “I have a feeling we’re talking about something else now.” 

That seemed to wake him up, his frustration dissipating. 

“All I’m saying is that you have to stop acting like the world is all on your shoulders,’ Clint said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Every bad thing that happens to it is not your fault because you got distracted.”

She pressed her lips into a slight frown. “Distractions are dangerous.”

“So is not letting yourself be happy because you think you should be punished instead.”

Natasha let her head drop onto his chest, falling into his embrace. 

“You know, some people would say you have too much heart for this business Clint,” Natasha said, trying to smile, but it fell flat. 

He sighed. “They could be right.”

She pulled away, running her hands through her hair. “You know that nothing will be the same again, right? SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore, not for us, anyway.”

He nodded solemnly. “You and Cap did the right thing. It all had to go.”

“Do you think I can make people believe that?”

“Just tell the truth. I think people want that now more than ever.”

She started to smirk at him. “I’m guessing you came here for some other truths too.”

“In all the pictures, you were wearing the necklace.” Clint touched it as if to prove its existence. When he did, he looked at her with a small but bright smile. “Still are.”

“I saw you had the flannel I gave you a while in Egypt,” she said, tugging at his shirt. “And look, you still are.”

“Keeping tabs on me, Romanoff?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. 

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. “Can I see your browser history?” 

“Touché.”

Natasha smiled tightly, worries of what they were doing beginning to surface again. Clint noticed this, taking a step back to put distance between the two of them. 

“You have a lot on your plate right now,” he said. “So, I’ll be here for you, and we can figure out what all that means later.”

She looked to the clock on the wall, thinking about how much more would change when she went to testify. It felt like they were somehow running out of time. Like a bomb was coming, ready to destroy everything, including them. 

“Why is later never now?” she said, frowning. 


	7. It’s Been a Long, Long Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I haven’t told him yet,” Natasha abruptly blurted out. 
> 
> Steve knew what she meant as soon as she said it. But he takes a moment, scrunching his eyebrows together, and asks her anyway, because he’s annoying like that. 
> 
> “Haven’t told him what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and kind comments! 
> 
> This chapter takes place during and after Avengers: Age of Ultron. 
> 
> It includes some Steve and Natasha bonding, as their friendship is one of my favorite dynamics in the films. Also, Pietro is alive in this fic because he deserved better, and I miss him. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy yet another fluffy chapter.

Clint was fine, drinking a smoothie and making snarky comments as the doctor healed him. Natasha had even thrown in some sarcastic barbs of her own. Yet, the aching feeling in her stomach hadn’t gone away since he’d been hurt. 

Thor was attempting to distract Clint by telling him tales of his heroics. Tony and Bruce were discussing plans to create an invention together. From overhearing bits and pieces of their conversation, it sounded like their creation would probably cause more headaches than relieve them. So, Natasha went to the top of Stark tower, needing an escape from everything going on inside of it.

Natasha stood on the rooftop, staring out at the city around her. She looked at the small dots of people moving around on the ground, the buildings that towered high into the sky, and the cars that sat idle in traffic. The buzzing sound of the hustle and bustle of the city was oddly soothing. It reminded her who they’re all doing this for, motivating her to keep doing her job. 

When she heard footsteps approaching, she didn’t need to turn around. She already knew who it was. 

Steve walked to her side, observing the city along with her. 

“You love him,” Steve stated. 

She doesn’t deny it. Steve knows her almost better than anyone, except for Clint. Plus, Steve is a hard person to lie to, which is saying something because she does a lot of it for a living. Just being around the guy with his blue eyes can make even the most trained agent want to spill their secrets.

“I do.”

Steve leaned against the railing, gazing out at the sun setting. Orange and pink colors reflected across the buildings, somehow making the edges of the skyscrapers look softer. 

“So, why hide it?” he asked. 

She stared down at her fingers, knotting them together. “We thought that keeping our relationship to ourselves was a good idea until we knew for sure it was stable.”

“Life doing what we do is never stable.” 

As much as Natasha wished that wasn’t true, she knew Steve was right. There was no point pretending that you could prepare for every possibility. The unexpected would get thrown at you regardless. 

Clint was unexpected when they met, and continues to be today. 

“I haven’t told him yet.”

Steve knew what she meant as soon as she said it. But he takes a moment, scrunching his eyebrows together, and asks her anyway, because he’s annoying like that. 

“Haven’t told him what?”

“How I feel,” she answers. “I mean, Clint knows. But I haven’t actually said it out loud.”

“Are you afraid he won’t say it back?”

“No,” Natasha said, chuckling hollowly. “I know he will, that’s what scares me.” 

Steve turns to her then, studying her closely. He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, trying to pick his words carefully, to make sure they get through to her. They’re both very stubborn, hard to move when they’ve made up their mind about something. So, Steve knows it will take considerable effort to make his words resonate with her. 

“Life’s far too short. If you love each other, be together,” he said, his face turning serious, resembling the look he used while giving one of his famous pep-speeches before a mission. “It’s easy to risk everything when you have nothing to lose. But admitting you do have something to hold onto isn’t a weakness, Natasha, it’s a strength. It gives you something to fight for.” 

Natasha raised a brow, a slight smirk growing on her lips. “Since when did you become a romance expert?”

He doesn’t roll his eyes, but the look he has on his face carries the same sentiment. He then pulls out something from his pocket, his face softening as he opens it. Steve hands it to her, and she gently curls her fingers around the object. 

It’s a compass she’d seen in videos from his war days, the one with a picture of Peggy Carter inside of it. She’s also seen him pull it out a few times over the years. He does it when a mission goes south, or when he’s debating with himself about something. Natasha has never asked him about it, but she guesses that he always has it on him. 

“Just, be happy that you have each other,” he said, giving a smile that he used that didn’t meet his eyes. It was one that fooled everyone else, but not her. “Okay?”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say, so she just nods and hands the compass back. 

Steve took it back cautiously as if it was a breakable piece of glass that would shatter if it slipped from his hands. 

She turns to watch the sunset and lets her head rest on the crook of Steve’s shoulder. He doesn’t act surprised or flinch away. Instead, Steve leans into her slightly. Silence falls between them as they watch the night overtake the sky. 

Natasha didn’t know if she could move on if she lost Clint like Steve lost Peggy. That’s what makes her nervous about making their relationship more real. 

But they both had found each other and were here, together. Maybe Steve was right, why waste time pretending they weren’t?

…

A few weeks after the fallout in Sokovia, they’re in the new Avengers base. Natasha and Steve had just got done training the recruits for the day. She dropped onto her bed, immediately resting her head on top of Clint’s chest. 

He stirred from his sleep, opening his eyes with a lazy smile. 

“Hey Nat, how was training? Are Sam and Rhodey still fighting over who can fly better?”

“They were until Vision and Wanda put them in their place. Pietro also ran circles around them until they stopped bickering,” she said with a smirk. 

“I'm starting to like that kid, don't tell him I said so, though.”

Natasha bites her tongue, wanting to say “you didn’t see that coming?” But saying that would get her pushed off the bed, and she’s far too comfortable right now. 

“They’re getting close to being a team They just need to be whipped into shape a little bit more.” 

He planted a kiss on her temple, rubbing his hands up and down her arm after he looped it around her shoulders. “If anyone can whip someone into shape, it’s you.” 

“You sure you don’t want to join us one of these days?”

“No,” Clint shook his head with a sly expression. “They’re not ready to train against me yet.” 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever you say.” 

It became quiet, the soft hum of the air conditioning filling the room. The silence wasn’t unsettling; it was comfortable, easy. Natasha listened to the beat of his heart, the thumping sound making a switch flick on inside of her. 

It was time. 

“Clint, I’m sorry.” 

He sat up against his pillow, pivoting his head towards her. “For what? Getting captured by a lunatic robot a few weeks ago?”

“No, for wasting time.” 

“Figuring out your coded message and getting you was not a waste of time—.” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she interrupted. Natasha took a deep breath, pulling herself off of his chest and leaning onto the backboard of the bed. “Clint, I need to say something. Before the next disaster happens, I don’t want to lose my chance to say it.”

The change of tone in her words startled Clint. He suddenly looks more awake, his eyes widening with worry. 

“Nat, you can tell me anything.”

Natasha swallowed heavily, squaring her shoulders and forcing herself to meet his eyes as the words slip out. 

“I love you.”

“You—what?”

“I love you,” Natasha stated simply. She reached over, placing her hands into his hair and rustling her fingers through it. “I adore who you are and who I am when I’m with you. I just need you to know that.” 

Clint catches her hand in his hair. He takes a moment to marvel at it, moving his palm over hers and pressing his lips to it tentatively. When he finally looks up at her, his green eyes sparkle, like a firework got ignited inside of them. 

“Natasha, I love you too.”

The words don’t shake her like she thought they would. Instead, she feels steadier. Like her feet were firmly planted to the ground for the first time since this whole thing started, not attempting to run away. 

He leaned in, kissing her softly. After a while, though, the kisses grew more fervent. Natasha felt Clint express everything that he’d held back over the years with his lips, turning each touch into a confession. 

After a while, he pulled back and began brushing his thumb across her cheek.

“I’ve loved you for a long time,” he said under his breath. 

Natasha smiled wryly. “I know.”

“Wow, alright, Han Solo,” he scoffed. 

“You love being my Leia, and you love me.” 

Clint doesn’t argue with that. 

Instead, he mutters something about his type being hot-headed scoundrels before pulling her to him again.


	8. Lucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Clint pulled his jeans a little to show off his ankle bracelet with a red light currently blinking away on it. He pointed to it with a wry smirk. “Literally.” 
> 
> A beat of silence passed, the ease of the moment dissipating as she remembered the airport ticket that sat in her bag upstairs. 
> 
> “But I have to,” Natasha muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Here's another chapter. It takes place after the events of Captain America: Civil War. It again plays with canon, as Clint doesn't have kids in this fic. 
> 
> It also references Clint's dog in the comics, "Lucky the Pizza Dog." 
> 
> Enjoy!

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. We’re not getting a dog.”

Clint dropped his head onto Natasha’s shoulder, pouting his lips like a six-year-old begging for candy. 

“Why not?”

She sighed, turning towards him on the couch. 

“Because I’m barely home and—,” before she could finish, Clint began to smile. She quirked her head at him. “What are you smiling about?” 

“You just called this place home.”

Natasha lightly smiled as she shrugged. “I guess that’s because it is home.”

She’s always called the farmhouse “his place” before. But over the past few years, and after they left the Avengers compound and moved in here, it had become a home for both of them when they were off work—well when she was off work. 

Ever since Sekovia, Clint had been taking it easy. He’d only do a job if one of the Avengers needed help. Like when Steve had called him for help when the Sekovia Accords happened, putting them into their current situation. 

Clint leaned in, pecking her quickly on the lips. As Clint pulled away, his face became somber. He looked fractured, his expression resembling a broken plate where jagged pieces lay on the floor. 

“Nat, I’m so sorry,” he said. 

She automatically started to shake her head. “Don’t apologize. I get why you want a dog, but—.” 

“I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about what happened.” 

Natasha immediately took his meaning, her lips turning into a thin line. It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about what happened, but the conversations they did have about what the media was calling a “Civil War” between the Avengers had all been brief. One would breach the subject, and the other would respond with curt nods or fleeting words. They were afraid of talking about it as if bringing it up would divide them in the way the rest of the Avengers were divided from one another. That was the last thing either of them wanted. 

Clint reached over, grabbing her hand and holding it firmly. She squeezed his hand gently, encouraging him to continue. 

“I’m sorry that we were on two different sides. I never thought we would be,” Clint said, his voice almost a whisper. 

Natasha let out a long breath, gathering the courage to meet his eyes. As soon as she did, she wasn’t scared but instead found comfort by his gaze. Suddenly, the words felt easy to say. 

“We may have been on opposite sides of an airport, but we’re always on the same side.”

He smiled wryly. “Say that to the bruise on my face.” 

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault you were pulling your punches.” 

He laughed and began to rub his thumb over the lines on her palm. 

“Remember when you made me promise that I’d never do that?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Natasha said, thinking back to that sparring session at the old SHIELD base, beginning to smile smugly. “You said it wouldn’t ever be a problem.”

“I know, but that was before—.”

“Before we got together,” Natasha finished, gesturing between them. 

Clint flinched, ducking his head. “I broke my promise. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Natasha moved closer to him, letting his arm drape around her shoulder as she nestled into his side. “For once, it’s a promise that I’m glad got broken.”

Clint brushed a kiss on top of her head and pulled her tighter into him. She closed her eyes, taking in the feeling of him next to her. 

A few minutes of peaceful silence passed, before Clint shifted positions, moving his arm away and putting his feet onto the table in front of them. 

“They’re putting me on house arrest. Same with Lang,” Clint said. 

She knew this, the government official who visited the farmhouse to put an ankle bracelet on him had told her as much. 

“You got off lucky,” Natasha said. 

“That’s what we should call a dog if we get one, Lucky. We need some more luck after everything that happened.” 

Natasha turned to him fully, pursing her lips as she thought of the right thing to say. 

“I thought picking Tony’s side meant that everything would stay the way it was, that we’d remain a team, but I should’ve known that’s the last thing the government wants us to be,” she eventually said, her throat feeling dry as she spoke. “If they didn’t trust us after everything we’ve done, I should’ve known that they never would.” 

Clint’s face dawned in understanding. “That’s why you let Bucky and Steve get on that plane.” 

Natasha nodded at him. “I realized what Steve meant about the safest hands being our own. I’ve always put my loyalties in different groups, wanting so badly to believe that I made the right choice. But sometimes that makes me forget to question those loyalties when it matters the most.” 

Clint placed a hand on her arm and rubbed it soothingly, causing her lips to quiver ever so slightly. 

“It’s good that you’re like that. It means you are there for people you believe in,” Clint said. 

She scoffed. “Even when what I believe in falls apart, every time?” 

He inched towards her. “Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Clint pulled his jeans a little to show off his ankle bracelet with a red light currently blinking away on it. He pointed to it with a wry smirk. “Literally.” 

A beat of silence passed, the ease of the moment dissipating as she remembered the airport ticket that sat in her bag upstairs. 

“But I have to,” Natasha muttered. 

Suddenly, the sound of the clock on the wall felt a lot louder. She could hear the hands on the clock booming in her ears as Clint fell silent. His eyes began to scrunch together, trying to process her words. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“There are some things I need to take care of in Russia, things I've been putting off for a long time,” Natasha confessed. “Now’s as good of a time as any, when I’m a free agent.”

He studied her carefully, beginning to frown. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” 

She began to pick at a loose thread on the blanket on her lap, avoiding his gaze. 

“Steve and Sam are still out there. I need to join them after I’m done in Russia.”

Natasha spared a glimpse Clint’s way after a minute more of silence passed. He looked caught in his thoughts, his lips pressed in a hard line, and his fingers were anxiously fidgeting, longing for an arrow to hold. 

“You know what that means, don’t you?” he asked. 

“That the government will label me as a criminal and try to hunt me down?” Natasha said dryly. “Yes, I know.”

He rubbed his forehead, exhaling deeply before speaking. “There’s no convincing you to stay here with me, collect firewood, and have game nights each Friday, is there?”

“Sorry, I hate catchphrase. It always ends in a shouting match,” Natasha joked with a soft smile. 

“We could play Clue.” 

“We lost the candlestick.” 

“We could use a toothpick instead. There’s plenty in the cabinet over the stove.” 

Natasha laughed, but let it fall away as she saw a glimpse of hurt hinting his eyes. 

“Things are happening, something big is coming, I need to be out there with them,” she explained. “I’ll come back whenever I can—Visit you and our future dog, Lucky.”

“Seriously?” he asked with a boyish grin. 

“Yes,” she relented with a faux groan. “You’ll need someone to keep you company while I’m gone.”

“You know that I’d rather you stay here, but I also know this is something you have to do. So, I’ll be here waiting for you,” Clint promised. “Hopefully whenever that big thing you think is coming comes, I’ll be off house arrest, and we can face it together.”

She got closer to him again, so her hip brushed against his. “After we face it, maybe we both can retire and live here.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, looking as convinced as he did when Pietro told him that he wouldn’t run and catch an arrow shot from Clint’s bow mid-flight this time. Those two were like Charlie and Lucy from the Peanuts, but with much more dangerous outcomes resulting from their antics than just dropping a football. 

“Natasha, I know you. You wouldn’t retire.”

Natasha’s eyes drifted down to his shirt, chewing on her lip. 

“I want to,” she said wearily. 

Clint smiled sadly. 

“You want to want to,” he corrected. 

She leaned up, kissing him softly, with a gentle kind of intensity. 

When she pulled away, she rested her forehead onto his. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Natasha pulled away, holding his shoulders and meeting his eyes with a familiar intensity. 

“Someday we’ll make this work…but I want the world to be ok when we do,” she said. 

“I know.” Clint closed his eyes tight, looking like he was in the middle of a prayer. “But who knows if it ever will.”

The world would never be completely ok, Natasha knew that. But maybe, one day, she’d feel like her fight was over. 

But, as of now, her job wasn’t finished. 

Two weeks later, when she left the farmhouse, she left a newly purchased collar on the kitchen table with the name Lucky engraved on the metal tag.


	9. Waiting for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why did you turn yourself into a fugitive?”
> 
> “Well, my boyfriend’s one, we like to share things,” Natasha said wryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! The first two parts of this chapter take place in the time after Civil War and before Infinity War. The third part is during Infinity War on their way to Wakanda, and the last part is after the events of the movie. Sorry that this chapter is shorter and jumps around a bit. I wanted to keep showing small glimpses into their lives. 
> 
> As always, it plays around with canon. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

They were in a hotel room—the kind where the shower only worked in five drips at a time, and the window had a beautiful view of the brick wall outside. Natasha was entertaining herself by looking through her small wallet that she carried everywhere.

Inside the wallet, behind the fake IDs and credit cards, were small keepsakes she carried around.

There was a library card that she’d gotten back in DC that she kept even after moving. She wondered if it would still work, were they to go back there.

Then there were a few coins, showing the different currencies from countries they’d gone to the past few months. It helped her remember where they’d been, as they bounced around frequently to avoid the government catching their trail.

Lastly, there was a photo tucked behind an old gift card. It was of Clint, on a rainy day they’d spent inside the farmhouse. He had on one of his infamous plaid shirts, and a trademark smirk facing the camera. In his hands, he was holding an apple that he just shot an arrow through, despite Natasha’s rule of not using his bow and arrow in the house. They had gotten into a fight about whether or not his skills had fallen to the waist side since retirement, and he ended up skewering all the fruit in their fridge that night to prove himself.

Natasha took the photo out of the wallet, bending the edges back and forth as she looked at it. Out of the corners of her eyes, she noticed the lamp on the other bed table turn on. She didn’t move as Sam sat down next to her upright on the bed.

“Miss him?” Sam asked.

Natasha nodded. “Yes.”

Sam gave a brief smile. “Why did you turn yourself into a fugitive?”

“Well, my boyfriend’s one, we like to share things,” Natasha said wryly.

Sam huffed out a laugh, and her mouth twitched up in response.

“Seriously, though. He’s on house arrest, couldn’t you have stayed there with him?”

“Yes, but this is something I need to do, just like this is something you feel like you need to do.”

His eyes glinted with a solitary understanding.

“It is hard to say no to Captain America, isn’t it?” he joked.

“He is very good at pep talks.”

“Right?” Sam laughed. “It’s surprising for someone who stutters when ordering a burger at a restaurant.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Steve voiced from the bathroom.

“Yes,” they both replied immediately.

Steve stepped out of the bathroom, running a towel through his wet hair. “Alright, just checking to make sure you’re not talking behind my back and are talking about me with a complete understanding that I’m listening.”

Soon after, they all headed to bed. Natasha put the photo underneath her pillow, her hand clutching it as she slept.

...

“Hey there, lumberjack,” Natasha greeted Clint on the phone.

“Very funny,” Clint scoffed. “But the jokes on you, I chopped wood today, so I’m an actual lumberjack.”

“I don’t think that cutting some wood automatically makes you a lumberjack.”

He tilted the camera away from his face and towards the fireplace.

“Say that to this awesome fire.”

She laughed, trying to hold onto the ease of the moment. It had almost been two years since she left. The only time she got to see Clint was through the screens of phones. Staying in contact required having to swipe devices and throw them away after, so the government couldn’t track them. While seeing Clint was great, reminding her of how far apart they were through talking on the phone made it worse. It reminded her of all that she was missing—of all, she could lose.

“So, how are you doing?” she asked.

“Fine. I get a little lonely sometimes, but Pietro runs by occasionally, and Stark has come over once or twice,” Clint said.

She arched a brow. “Really? He’s not still mad?”

Clint considered this for a few moments, his eyes squinting in thought. “I wouldn’t say he’s not mad, but he doesn’t want to be.”

Natasha sighed. At least most of them were making an effort to be civil. As she thought about it, the only ones who hadn’t spoken since the Avengers broke up (the ones who were still on Earth, that is) were Rogers and Stark. It made sense, as they were the most dramatic out of the entire group.

“How’s Lucky doing?” Natasha asked, attempting to change the subject.

“Good. Except he was bad today, he stole the pizza off my plate,” Clint grumbled, his eyes drifting away from the camera, and pointing his glare at who she suspected was the dog off the screen. “I’ve been calling him ‘pizza dog’ ever since.”

“Clever,” Natasha drawled.

His eyes then widened, looking as if he just remembered something.

“By the way, you’ll never guess what Tony dropped off,” Clint said.

“What?”

He began to walk with his phone, the camera shaking as he spoke. After a few seconds, he flipped the camera around. Natasha leaned closer to the screen, trying to make out what Clint was trying to show her. It began to focus, showing a piece of paper sitting on a table.

“A wedding invitation?” Natasha asked, her mouth falling open. She smiled as she saw Tony’s and Pepper’s name on it as he moved the lens closer to the paper. “Finally.”

He turned his phone back around, facing him. “I know it’s about time.”

As he sat down again, silence fell between the two. Natasha could hear the soft echo of birds chirping on his end of the phone. He must’ve left the back door open again. Clint liked a breeze to come through the house on the warmer days. She closed her eyes, almost able to feel the breeze hit against her skin from thousands of miles away.

“Nat, when are you coming back?”

Her eyes shot open, her expression hardening again.

“It could be a few weeks, could be months.”

Clint sighed. “If I didn’t have this on my ankle, I’d be there with you.”

“I know you would,” Natasha said, smiling gently. “I miss you.”

“Back at you,” Clint winked, causing Natasha to roll her eyes. After a few seconds passed, his brows drew together, looking worried. “Can I ask you something?”

Natasha used her other hand to prop her chin onto it, holding the phone closer. “Anything.”

“Does Cap snore? Please tell me he does, that guy has got to have a flaw.”

“He has flaws, but that’s not one of them,” Natasha said, holding back a laugh. “He can sleep on anything, even these crappy hotel beds.”

Clint let out an exaggerated sigh, feigning disappointment. “Well, tell him and Sam that I say hello.”

“I will.”

Clint grounded his jaw, looking at her more seriously. “Stay safe.”

“I’ll try.” Natasha gathered a breath. He nodded, looking like he was about to hang up. Before he could, a rush of words came out of Natasha’s lips, needing him to hear her say it out loud in case there was any doubt in his mind of the fact. “I’ll come home to you. After whatever is coming comes. You know that, right?”

Clint didn’t respond, but the warm glint in his eyes gave her the answer.

...

Natasha stirred on the plane, anxious to land on Wakanda. She had called every number she could think to reach him at, but she was met again and again with no answer.

She hung her head in exhaustion, gripping the phone tightly in his hands. Steve walked up to next to her seat, holding on to a bar on the ceiling to keep his balance.

“I can’t reach him,” Natasha said eventually, breaking the silence.

“You said he goes out in the woods a lot, right? Maybe he just left his cellphone at the house,” Steve suggested.

She sat down her phone and drummed her knuckles on her armrest. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

His hand found its way to her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Nat, Thanos wouldn’t go there, he’s fine.”

She looked out at the window, the fields below looking completely normal. The image of it child her, reminding her of the calm before the storm. “For now.”

Steve kneeled next to her. When she turned to look at him, she was met with his blue eyes filled with so much determination.

“We’ll beat him—Together.”

“We have to,” Natasha said, pushing away her fears and worries, knowing the gravity of the fight they were about to enter. “Steve, we have to.”

He stood back up, looking away from her. As he walked away, she heard him mutter quietly, “I know.”

...

Natasha got back to the farmhouse as fast as she could. She needed to know that he’s not dust. She needed to see him there. She couldn’t think about anything else. She refused to think about all they’d lost today, she couldn’t think about how they failed, she couldn’t think about what she’ll do if he’s not there. If she thought about any of that, she wouldn’t be able to remain standing.

It was eerily quiet when she arrived. It was like the wind forgot how to rustle through the trees, and the birds don’t have any songs left to sing.

Once she arrived, she walked into the house, shouting his name.

When she found him on the couch, staring at a static screen with terror in his eyes, she collapses onto the ground. Everything that she refused to think about crashing down on her, unable to have the energy to hold it all in anymore now that she knows he’s safe.

Clint is at her side in an instant, throwing his arms around her. They envelop themselves in one another, gripping each other so tight to prove that one another is there.

For the first time since it all happened, Natasha sobs.

She heard cries escape Clint's throat as well, but he kept his arms steady on her. Thanos took a lot, but he could never take away the spark of resilience that dwelt in both of them. They held one another almost defiantly, daring anyone that was left to try and tear them apart.

After what seemed like hours of just holding one another on the floor, Natasha finally spoke up.

“You’re still here,” she croaked.

Clint's hands touched her cheek, wiping away tears. He smiled at her with glistening eyes.

“I told you I’d be waiting for you.”


	10. To Build a Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brick by brick, Natasha built herself into a person she was happy to be. She also had built a home with the man that was currently waiting for downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who stuck out the fic for this long! I had a good time writing it. A Tumblr post about this headcanon of Natasha signing her vows to Clint influenced this chapter. 
> 
> This chapter takes place after Endgame, playing loose with cannon to have them all come out of it unscathed. I hope you enjoy this chapter filled with Clintasha fluff and Avengers shenanigans.

Once they brought everyone back, fought Thanos, and won, things had settled down. Natasha and Clint barely left the house unless they needed to. They were too relieved that they got to have each other and the people they loved back.   
  
While she’d been fierce about staying busy in the five years between the two snaps, she now felt she could finally lower her fists. Like she could finally breathe again. Although she’d continued serving on the council that they’d started in the gap years, offering advisement and checking in on threats, she didn’t spend as much time in the field.   
  
They had gotten into a rhythm. Clint would take care of the garden, mow the lawn, and take Lucky on a walk once a day. Natasha would read, chop firewood, and take care of the few chickens and cows they’d gotten in the farm Clint had built in his time during house arrest.   
  
They’d eat meals together, and Clint would sometimes join her for facetime calls with Sam and Steve. They’d also make up for lost time frequently, their bodies colliding together in the bedroom, on the couch, even one time in the kitchen.  
  
It was a lazy Thursday afternoon when she finally decided to do it as they were eating dinner at the kitchen table. It was the soft sound of a news report about the environmental impact of the snap playing in the other room.   
  
“I never had a family,” Natasha signed to him, as he had taken his hearing aids out for the night.   
  
He’s heard this story before, but her signed statement seemed to jolt him. Clint let go of his fortune cookie.   
  
“I’m sorry,” he signed back because he knew Natasha had more to say.  
  
“I know you had one and lost it,” she continued, trying her hardest to stop her hands and voice from shaking. “But then you found SHIELD. I escaped, then you found me, and then I found SHIELD, and we both found the Avengers. We have a new family.”  
  
“We do,” Clint agreed out loud. His voice wavered into uncertainty. “What are you getting at?”  
  
“I love the way things are, I do. I love the family we have in them and each other. I don’t need more. But, I want more,” she said as she signed. “Loving you makes me believe we deserve a shot at it.”  
  
“At what?”  
  
Natasha pulled out the box that she’d put inside the table drawer when Clint went to the door to pay for the food delivery.   
  
He stilled when he saw the box. Natasha gently lifted it open to reveal two simple silver bands. Tony helped her pick them out. He pushed for something extravagant or technologically advanced so they could track one another, but she wanted the rings to be just that. Rings. Nothing more or nothing less than what they signified.  
  
Nat tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, squaring her shoulders. “You can think about it. I don’t need an answer now.”  
  
He blinked at her, his lips parting in surprise and looking like he was working hard to make his brain catch up with what was happening.   
  
“Are you proposing?” he stuttered.   
  
Natasha’s eyes flickered between the ring and him. “Uh, yeah.”  
  
For a terrifying moment, Natasha thinks he’s going to say no. That she’s scared him off for good, that she should run out the door and chuck the rings out the window. He walked over to the kitchen counter, putting his hearing aids in and walking back over to her. She is frozen still, until Clint reached for her hand, anchoring her back to him.  
  
“But…I’m supposed to propose,” Clint objected, a ghost of a grin appearing on his face.   
  
Relief flooded her instantly.   
  
“You want to be traditional in our relationship now? One former runaway circus performer and former Russian spy that work with a big green guy and a dude that makes lightning come out of a hammer?” she scoffed.   
  
He broke out into a broad smile, his face incandescent.  
  
“I love who we are, and that’s why I want to marry you,” he said. “But you didn’t say the words. We have to do this properly.”  
  
“Fine,” she drawls, but she feels herself begin to smile along with him. Natasha takes one of the rings with and holds it out to him. “Clint Barton, will you marry me?”  
  
He beamed at her, in the way that is reserved for only her. Well, and their dog Lucky.  
  
“Yes,” he said.   
  
She tries to lean in and kiss him, but he lunged for the other ring in the box. He kneeled in front of her and held out the ring to her.  
  
“You are my partner. I want you to be that in every way. Will you marry me?”  
  
She nodded her head, feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the love she feels coming from this man.  
  
“Yes,” she answered.   
  
She surged forward and kissed the smirk off his face. Somehow, they managed to put the ring on each other’s fingers as they clung to each other.   
  
“So, I guess we should go make it official,” Clint said.   
  
She laughed, looking down at the rings they wore that usually went on after you got married. But as Natasha said, they never were a conventional couple.   
  
Suddenly an idea popped into her mind. She stood up, beaming at Clint. “Yeah, let’s do it.”  
  
He pulled at her arm, tugging her back down. “Woah, I didn’t mean now.”  
  
“Why wait?” Natasha shrugged. “It’s what we want.”  
  
He can’t seem to argue with that. He joins Natasha, standing up and beginning to dig around for his phone.  
  
“We should make a few calls.”  
  
She nodded and typed in a message to the group chat.  
  
Nat: Meet Clint and me here in 20.  
  
It takes Steve only a second to respond.   
  
Steve: What’s the situation?  
  
Tony: 💍?!  
  
Natasha: 👍  
  
Thor: I knew it.   
  
Clint: Do any of you know someone who can officiate?  
  
Steve: I’ll handle it. Peggy and I are on our way.   
  
Rhodey: I’ll pull some strings to get you wedding certificates.   
  
Peter: THIS IS AMAZING. A SUPERHERO WEDDING.  
  
Shuri: Can I livestream it?  
  
Okoye: I think that would be unwise. When they posted a picture of Clint teaching her how to use a bow and arrow, it was trending for days.  
  
Scott: Do you want an army of ants in tuxes? I’ve always wanted to do that.  
  
Tony: No one else wants that, Scott.  
  
Wanda: I don’t know, that seems like it would be pretty cute.  
  
Clint: You can’t say no to the groom on his wedding day, so I say yes.   
  
Nat: I think that rule is for the bride, and I say no.   
  
Scott: Duly noted.   
  
Nat: Still got ties to Baskin Robbins for a cake Lang?  
  
Scott: I swore I would never return, but I’m prepared to do the superhero thing and take a bullet for you.  
  
Sam: I’m coming. I was in the middle of dinner, but hey, you guys never had great timing.   
  
Steve: Sometimes, the best timing is imperfect.   
  
Sam: Tell that to the beautiful chicken piccata I just made that’s getting abandoned on my dining room table.   
  
Quill: I’ll bring over the Guardians and some music.   
  
Tony: But you don’t have anything after the 80s.   
  
Quill: So? You want it to be good music, right?   
  
Peter: That’s so ageist Peter #2.   
  
Quill: I am not Peter #2, I’m Peter #1.   
  
Tony: Let the kid have this.   
  
Bruce: Congrats. I will be there, and bring over some drinks that Thor left at my place.  
  
Thor: I’m willing to part with them for this magnificent union.   
  
Valkarie: And also, because he already bought more at the liquor store.   
  
T’Challa: I’m currently in Wakanda, but you are not doing this without me.  
  
Strange: I’ll make a portal, coming your way your highness.  
  
Scott: Oh, can Hope and I get one too?  
  
Bruce: Same. Traffic’s terrible right now.  
  
Carol: It’s a good time to have the ability to fly. ;)  
  
Fury: Don’t rub it in, Danvers.  
  
Vision: She has a point; it makes things a whole lot easier.   
  
Bucky: I could also go for a portal.  
  
Peter: You should set up a portal Lift, Mr. Strange.  
  
Strange: I’m a doctor, not a personal driver.   
  
Peter: Was that a Star Trek reference?   
  
Strange: …  
  
Strange: Sit away from me at the wedding.   
  
…  
  
Natasha pressed her hands over the bottom of her grey dress, making sure there were no wrinkles in sight. Steve readjusted his tie beside her, both looking into the mirror in the corner of the bedroom.   
  
“When you said that you’d handle the officiating, I thought you meant that you would bring someone,” Natasha said wryly.  
  
“Well, technically, I did. I brought myself through the door,” Steve said, giving her his smart-ass smile, the one that others would describe as polite if they didn’t know him well enough.

“How did you do get ordained so fast anyway? Isn’t there an internet test you have to do?”   
  
“I didn’t need to be ordained,” Steve started to say, ducking his head and staring down at his black shoes with not a spec of dirt on them as he spoke. “Because I already was.”  
  
She snapped towards him. “What, when?”  
  
“Back during the war, a lot of people were rushing to get married,” he began to explain, nervously putting his hands into his pockets. “During that whole Captain America propaganda trip, it became a thing to help get more money for war bonds.”   
  
Natasha stepped in front of Steve, readjusting his tie that he seemed to have messed up even more than before. “Well, I’m grateful that so many people were impulsive and got married right away so you could officiate this wedding now.”  
  
“I am too,” he agreed with a kind smile. “Things tend to happen for a reason.”  
  
She sat down on the bed, knitting her hands together in her lap.   
  
“Do you think we can do this?” she asked, her voice faint.   
  
“Yes,” he answered immediately. “I’m only recently married, but when you have the right person, it makes facing all the complications simple when you’re together.”  
  
Natasha felt herself release a breath. If Steve and Peggy, who were starting a relationship in a different century, could make a marriage work, so could she and Clint.   
  
Steve walked to the door. “I’ll see you up there, ok?”   
  
“Can you call Fury in?” Natasha asked as he grabbed the doorknob.   
  
He nodded and left her in the bedroom by herself as he closed the door behind him.

Natasha didn’t usually spend much time looking in the mirror, but she found her eyes drifting back to it again. Looking at her reflection used to be difficult, she’d either see someone she didn’t recognize or someone she couldn’t bear to look at. But now, she could meet her reflection and not be upset with what she saw. 

Brick by brick, Natasha built herself into a person she was happy to be. She also had built a home with the man that was currently waiting for downstairs.  
  
Natasha suddenly heard the door open behind her, causing her to turn towards it, meeting the eyes of an old friend.   
  
“You and Barton have done a lot of crazy things, but this one might take the cake,” Fury said.   
  
“You’ll have to try the cake before it starts to melt. Lang got an ice cream cake.”   
  
He held out his arm to her. “You ready?”  
  
Natasha grabbed her bouquet that had been assembled by Maria and took his arm with her other hand with a nod.   
  
“Good, let’s get you out there.”  
  
They began to walk forward through the open door. As they walked down the hall, she could hear the echo of music. Thankfully, it wasn’t one of Quill’s 80’s ballads playing on an iPod or whatever device he had upgraded to now. Instead, it sounded like a simple piano playing through the speakers. Her feet stopped before the stairs once she recognized the tune.   
  
It was the score for one of her favorite ballets. She usually plays them in the house when she’s working out or getting something done, and Clint always complains about them putting him to sleep. But she guessed he hadn’t been napping through the music as much as she thought.   
  
Fury looked at her, raising a brow. “You good?”  
  
“Yes.” She said, turning to him with a thoughtful expression. “I just wanted to say thank you.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For pairing Clint and I up,” Natasha said. She leaned up, pressing a friendly kiss to his cheek. “Otherwise, this may not be happening right now.”   
  
“I don’t know about that,” he said, letting out a gruff laugh. He patted her hand that was on his arm. “I think it would’ve happened no matter what decision I made. You two work too well together to stay apart. Even getting the soul stone, you both found your way back.”  
  
Her jaw tightened, the memories of a few months ago coming back to her. They both fought one another to dive off that cliff so the other wouldn’t have to. When she let go of Clint’s hand, he fell right after her, attempting to be the one to hit the ground before her.

The act of two people who loved each other, sacrificing themselves for one another, must have astounded whoever runs the soul stone exchange at Vormir, as they were given mercy by it stopping both of their falls. They both ended up landing in a body of water, and the soul stone was floating in the air between them. They had raised their hands to grab the stone, the yellow of it glimmering as they both touched it.   
  
As Natasha walked down the stairs, she thought about the look on Clint’s face that day. When Natasha had met his eyes after taking the soul stone, she had been reminded of the day they first met.

After he had lowered his bow, and she’d dropped her gun, his eyes had looked as if the clouds in them had started to part, letting out the sun and making her bask in his light. The same look appeared in his eyes when Clint realized she was still alive at Vormir, and that both of them had completed the mission they’d been working to finish for five years.  
  
After making it down the steps, Natasha saw the living room transformed from what it had looked like two hours ago. The furniture had been taken out, she’d seen Danvers and Thor lugging the couch and television out to the barn and bickering like they were on an episode of a sitcom earlier that night. While both are strong enough to carry furniture by themselves, they decided that teamwork would help the process go faster. An ill-advised decision in Natasha’s opinion, but somehow, they’d gotten it done so she couldn’t complain.  
  
The room was decorated with yellow flowers hanging from the ceiling and walls, strung together with thread. The aisle that spanned no more than a few feet and was lined with what appeared to be a white knitted table cloth. It was outlined on the side with candles, lit in glass jars, and illuminating the way. Natasha couldn’t help but beam at it all. While she was not one for exaggerated decorations, she enjoyed the simple beauty that they had brought to the room. For something that was put together on short notice and in a rush, it looked stunning. But maybe what was stunning wasn’t the way it looked, but the people whose hands set this all up for them.  
  
As she stepped on the aisle, the walk down it despite its short length felt long, like the journey getting them here. She looked to the end of the room, where Clint was standing there, gazing at her. Lucky sat next to him, a small bow-tie around his neck.

Next to Lucky was Pietro, who looked unamused that the dog that got to be in front of him. There was an arch created with tulle, that had some fairy lights strung through it. It brightened Clint’s face, which was beaming with an dazzling glint in his eye.   
  
When she made it to the end of the aisle, she handed her flowers to Maria, who gave her an encouraging wink and stepped to stand on her other side.  
  
She turned back towards Clint, taking his hands to hold in-between them. Any nerves were soothed by the feeling of his calloused fingers on hers.   
  
Steve smiled at them both. He began to speak, but the words seemed to go by her like she was reading a book at night, taking in words like a breeze that passed. Her focus was on Clint, who looked just as intently at her. When he got to the part about their vows, both seemed to snap out of their trance and be fully in the moment that was occurring.   
  
Clint cleared his throat, sparing a glance at the rows of superhero’s that had started to incline their backs forward to hear what he had to say. He looked away from them and stepped a fraction closer to her.   
  
“When I was young, I was always running. I literally ran away to the circus,” he said with a small chuckle.  
  
That earned a few laughs, and heard someone who she was sure was Peter Parker murmur, “Clint was in the circus?”  
  
“Even when I joined shield, I was constantly on the move and refused to get too close to anything, but when I met you, I finally stood still,” Clint continued, looking rooted on the spot in front of her as he spoke. “I saw your skills, your intelligence, your stubbornness, your good heart, and your determination to do what you thought was right at any cost. I didn’t stay at a distance or run the other way. I walked towards you. I want to keep walking towards you my whole life.”  
  
She saw his eyelashes start to flutter as some tears welled in them. Neither of them cried often, but when one did, it seemed to sync them together. She wiped away one of his tears, cradling his cheek before wiping away one that had snuck away down on her face.   
  
Steve turned to Natasha, signaling that it was her turn to speak.  
  
Natasha locked eyes with Clint and began to use sign language to express her vows. Clint’s eyes glistened with a joyous surprise, intently watching her hands as they expressed all she wanted him to know.   
  
“Now, that’s just not fair,” Tony sniped from the front row, earning a scolding look from Steve from where he was standing.   
  
“She doesn’t need anyone else to hear,” Pepper said, nudging him gently with her elbow. “The words are only for him.”  
  
“Then why are we even here?” Rhodey muttered under his breath.   
  
Wanda ignored them, gripping Vision’s hand in hers as she watched Clint and Natasha. “I think it’s sweet.”  
  
“I took a sign language class, maybe I can translate,” Peter said, getting on the edge of his seat.   
  
“What is she saying?” Tony whispered to him.   
  
Peter’s eyes scrunched as he watched them. “She’s saying something about…a taco?”  
  
“Clint’s tearing up, there is no way in hell what she just said involves taco’s,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.   
  
“But he does really like tacos,” Bucky countered with a hint of a smile.   
  
“As much as Rhodey likes destroying tacos?” Scott spoke up from behind them.   
  
Rhodey scoffed. “Lang, you really have to get over that.”  
  
“He taught her what love when they met and continues to today,” T’Challa said, interrupting them. Even though he’d been quiet during the whole exchange, he’d manage to keep up with the conversation happening in front of him and around him.  
  
“You know sign language?” Bruce asked.  
  
“I’m a king,” T’Challa answered with a shrug. “I had a good education.”  
  
“I’m a fellow King—or was, and I also understood everything she said,” Thor chimed in with a cocky smirk.   
  
“Oh really? Want to give us a recap?” Valkyrie asked, narrowing her eyes at him.   
  
Thor’s grin flickered an inch as he fell silent, and he sat a little less tall in his seat.  
  
“Now with those spoken and....unspoken vows, the rings?” Steve said loudly, gaining all the guests’ attention again.   
  
Natasha and Clint held up both of their left hands to Steve, showing their rings.   
  
“Alright then,” Steve said with a broad smile. “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”  
  
Clint beamed at her and moved his arm around her waist.   
  
“Did you think we’d ever be here, doing this?” Clint questioned.   
  
“I hoped so,” Natasha whispered, pulling his face down to hers with a grin. They ignored the cheering and clapping behind them as they kissed.   
  
…  
  
With the reception in full swing, Natasha took a moment to take a swing of the champagne that Thor had poured a shot of “something special” into. The taste of its strength made her lips twitch, but the blood in her veins felt electrified by the taste.  
  
Natasha turned to Pietro beside her, who was juggling a couple of Morgan’s stuffed animals in super-speed, making her laugh.   
  
“So, what did you have to do to be Clint’s best man?” Natasha asked him.   
  
Although Clint and Pietro made fun of one another all the time, she knew that they were close. But the decision to make Pietro his best man had surprised her, she wondered if the stress of throwing this all together within a few hours had made Clint forget that Pietro would taunt him about this forever.   
  
“I’m his best friend,” Pietro defended, feigning shock and dropping Morgan’s stuffed animals to the floor.   
  
Natasha picked up Morgan’s toys, handing them to her with a smile. Morgan took them and ran away towards Tony, who looked like he was teaching Peggy how to use her new phone on the other end of the room. She assumed Morgan would tattle to her dad about one of his co-worker’s ill-treatment of her toys. She just hoped she would be there when Tony made sure Pietro understood his mistake of crossing his daughter.   
  
She turned back to Pietro, arching one of her eyebrows. “Wrong, I’m his best friend—try again.”  
  
“You can’t be his bride and his best man,” he said, crossing his arms and looking deadly serious even though the song Tequila was being played in the room as people danced.   
  
“I’m not trying to take the position from you. I’m just wondering how you did it.”  
  
“Fine,” Pietro said, leaning off the wall with a huff. “Do you remember the night that Clint and I got drunk and played operation?”  
  
“Yeah, I heard the annoying buzzing sound go off long into the night,” she responded dryly.   
  
“Well, when it came to the clock in his heart, we kept hitting the buzzer. We made a bet that whoever was the first to get it out successfully would get something in return. I would have to run errands for him for three months if I lost.”  
  
“And you’d be his best man if you won?” Natasha guessed.   
  
“No,” he shook his head with a roguish smile. “He’d have to name his first-born Pietro.”  
  
“What?” Natasha barked, gawking at him.   
  
“Don’t act so appalled, it’s a good name.”  
  
“But I wasn’t included in the decision of my first child’s name,” Natasha protested.   
  
While the red room forced her to undergo the operation that wouldn’t allow her to have kids so she wouldn’t form attachments, Clint and her had discussed having a family one day by other means over the past few months.   
  
“This is exactly how Clint thought you’d react,” Pietro said. “That’s why I let him change the terms out of pity. He had to let me be the best man at his wedding, and he had to use Pietro as a middle name for one of his kids.”  
  
“So now I’m having more than one?” Natasha said with an annoyed glare.   
  
“Natasha, you’re getting worse at pretending all this settling down stuff is repulsive,” Pietro stated.   
  
“I know, I guess that’s what love does to you,” she said, swirling her glass and avoiding his eyes. “It makes you soft.”  
  
“I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing,” Pietro said with a half-smile.   
  
She raised her lips to her glass, hiding her own grin. “No, I guess it’s not.”  
  
“I got to go. Clint wants to do the whole something old and blue thing too, so I need to go get blue candy to change the color of his tongue,” he said.   
  
“Why? The wedding’s over.”  
  
“I know, he said you’d do the tradition for the ceremony, and he’d do it for the reception.”  
  
“You guys are lunatics,” Natasha ridiculed with a sliver of amusement in her tone.   
  
“That’s why we’re all avengers,” he replied with a broader smirk and turned his back. He started to walk away but quickly turned back a threw a wrapped gift at her.   
  
She caught it in one hand while drinking her champagne with the other without even blinking.  
  
“I saw that coming,” Natasha said.   
  
“You’re catching up quicker than Barton,” Pietro admitted, waggling a finger at her. “No surprise there.”  
  
As he left, she started walking around the party, talking with all of their friends, and enjoying seeing them look so loose and free. Usually, when they were together, there was a crisis going on. The only crisis in the house was Rocket, who looked like he was fiddling with their radio dangerously close to the punch bowl as Mantis eyed it like a fishbowl swimming with creatures. 

She finally made it to Clint’s side, who was now talking with Tony. He greeted her with a smile and put his arm around her before turning back to Tony.   
  
“Got any advice as a married man?” Clint asked Tony.   
  
“I’ve been a married man for five years, the advice is always by anniversary gifts months in advance,” Tony replied haughtily.   
  
“Our anniversary, he got me my favorite cheese, but it didn’t come till October, and let’s just say it was not what it once was,” Pepper said with a cringe.   
  
“What about you, Steve and Peggy,” Clint said, turning to the couple who had been in an intense discussion about why everyone had made such a big deal when the YMCA song came on earlier at the party. “You two are newlyweds. Any tips?”  
  
“Compromise. I came to his time, so he has to do the dishes for eternity,” Peggy stated, her red lips turning into a playful grin.   
  
“That’s why my fingers are all pruny,” Steve said, raising his hands to them in proof.   
  
“But it’s worth it, right?”   
  
“Yes,” Steve replied softly as Peggy leaned onto his side, making Steve looking more at peace than Natasha had ever seen him. “Definitely.”  
  
They talked for a little longer before she found her way to the kitchen. As she entered, she noticed that it was turning into the favorite hiding spot of some of the guests. Bucky looked like he was trying to make some coffee near the sink, and Strange was sitting on the counter with his eyes closed and legs crossed.

She didn’t question any of this and instead went to the kitchen table. She sat across MJ, who was reading a book that she must have pulled off from one of Natasha’s shelves.   
  
“So, how are you dealing with all of this?” Natasha asked her.   
  
“It’s fine,” MJ said, shrugging as she turned to the next page. “Kind of like being at my dad’s family reunion with all my crazy relatives. But instead of talking about politics and yelling after drinks are served, everyone here fights and flies.”  
  
“So, pretty similar,” Natasha drawled sarcastically.   
  
MJ looked up from the book, biting back a laugh. “By the way, I’ve meant to tell you that you’re awesome. You’re my favorite superhero.”  
  
“Even more than Spider-man?”  
  
“Definitely.”   
  
“Hey!” Peter chimed in over by the fridge with his mouth full of melting ice cream cake.   
  
“Fine, equally,” MJ said, winking at Natasha.   
  
Peter gaped, pointing at her. “MJ, I saw that wink!”   
  
Natasha smiled at them as she stood up from the table. “You guys are adorable.”  
  
“I know. It’s gross,” MJ said, her whole body seeming to relax as Peter walked over to her side and planted a kiss on the top of her head.   
  
“I have a feeling you and I will get along just fine,” Natasha told MJ.   
  
“Back at ya.”  
  
Natasha strolled back into the living room, seeing a crowd surrounding Steve. She walked closer, trying to see what all the ruckus was about.   
  
“Do it again,” she heard Clint say.   
  
“No, Clint. I already did it three times,” Steve replied.   
  
“But this time, I’ll see how you’re cheating.”  
  
Once she made it past the circle of people and into the center, she saw Steve lifting the hammer and holding it firmly in his hands.   
  
“You cannot cheat the Mjölnir,” Thor said, looking annoyed that everyone’s impressed looks pointed at Steve instead of him.   
  
As the crowd began to part and got back to dancing, she patted Clint on the back who was shaking his head at Steve.   
  
“Don’t worry Clint, I think you’re worthy,” Natasha said.   
  
“Just not as worthy as the god and man out of time,” Clint responded with a grunt.   
  
Scott appeared over his shoulder. “If you let me call up a bunch of ants, I bet they could lift it and—.”  
  
“No!” everyone around them shouted.   
  
“Fine,” Scott pouted. “You guys are no fun.”  
  
“Hey, you caught my bouquet. You should be thrilled right now,” Natasha smirked.   
  
Scott muttered a jumble of words, starting to blush before walking away and back to Hope, who looked like she was in an animated conversation with Pepper.   
  
“If you’ll excuse us, we need to have our dance,” Clint told them, leading Natasha away with his hand at the small of her back.   
  
As they made their way to the center of the room, Quill put on a slow song that made her want to roll her eyes in the best way. One hand went to his shoulder, and the other one went to grasp his hand. They pulled each other closer as they started to sway. She pressed her cheek to his neck, pressing a soft kiss there before leaning fully against him.   
  
Clint’s mouth hovered close to her ear, his breath tickling her neck.   
  
“What are you thinking right now?” he whispered.   
  
Natasha leaned her head back so that she could see his entire face. The corner of her mouth quirked up, feeling a warmth in her chest as she looked at the man she was determined to be with. The no attachments rule was no longer ingrained in her, leaving her free to be surrounded by a family she started to acquire the second Clint went from a threat to an ally.   
  
She ended up answering Clint’s question by pressing her lips against his.


End file.
